Marjorie P. Lee Senior Living Blog

The words “nursing home” often bring to mind thoughts of colorless, sterile and depressing environments. This stereotype couldn’t be further from the truth—especially when you consider the emergence of a new model of long-term care designed to maximize independence, dignity and personal choice among residents. How, specifically, are these senior living communities raising the bar when it comes to positive aging?

Read on for a roundup of five exciting—and unexpected—trends transforming the face of long-term care.

For some seniors, short-term rehab can end up becoming a transition stage to long-term care. Medical science can't always predict how the human body will heal. There are times when a person just doesn't respond as expected to treatment, or when there is simply more deterioration than the body can overcome.

While the flu can strike anyone, seniors are at increased risk — both for the disease and serious complications related to it. In fact, people 65 and older have accounted for up to 90 percent of all seasonal flu-related deaths in recent years, as well as up to 70 percent of seasonal flu-related hospitalizations, according to research published in the academic journal, PLOS One.

The good news? Several precautions can help decrease your aging loved one’s chances of getting this extremely contagious and life-threatening respiratory illness. Read on for a roundup of six flu prevention tips for seniors.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, and no matter just how delightful the fire may be, winter brings with it unique challenges — particularly for seniors. Between falling temperatures and shorter darker days, the cold weather season can tempt many older adults to hibernate until spring.

Unfortunately, lack of physical and mental activity during this time can lead to some detrimental outcomes, including everything from loneliness to a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

 For years, American women experienced disparities in the quality of their healthcare relative to men. Many health issues particular to females — including reproductive health and family planning — were considered taboo in Western culture, especially among people of faith. Many women didn’t seek (or, in some areas, couldn’t get) the care they needed.

“It hurts so much I don’t even want to get out of bed.”

Is that a familiar feeling? If you suffer from the nagging, chronic, persistent, and sometimes debilitating pain of arthritis, you might have said those words yourself. Or perhaps you think them more often than you care to admit.

Stress seems to be the epidemic of the modern world.

And while hearing an elementary-aged grandchild talk about the stress in life, it may be cause for smiles, but stress is no laughing matter. Chronic stress brought on by a diverse menu of causes adversely affects your physical health, mental well-being and, ultimately, your overall quality of life.

Alzheimer's disease is a notoriously difficult cognitive disorder to deal with. For people in the advanced stages of the disease, little other than providing supportive care and memory care can be done — there is no known cure and, to date, no known medicine that could be given to reliably slow its advance.

You may have heard Vitamin D referred to before as the "sun vitamin." That's because it is the one vitamin your body can manufacture, just from exposure to sunlight! And it's an important one, too: the Vitamin D family of nutrients is responsible for aiding absorption of other critical nutrients your body needs to function, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and phosphate.

Perhaps the last thing you might expect the average senior to do is to play video games. The arcade world is one most often relegated to the younger generations. Most seniors, who did not grow up living with multi-button controllers and the constant visual stimuli inherent to modern gaming, seem to have difficulty playing well, or even in picking up the basics. Indeed, most are put off by the complexity.