Kendal at Home Blog

According to the National Council on Aging, falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries in older adults. Even if you fall and don’t experience injury, it can impact your life.

Consider this: Falling is a common fear among older adults — whether they’ve experienced a fall or not. While this is a normal fear, leaving the fear of falling unchecked actually can increase your risk of falling as well as diminish your quality of life. If you have a fear of falling, you may find yourself going out less often, being less physically active, or spending less time with family and friends.

But the good news is you can do several things to quell your worries if you are afraid of falling. Let’s look at a few.

If you’re like most of us, chances are you’ve done a little research on how to keep your brain healthy and some of the common cognitive afflictions that can occur as we age. Or maybe you’ve heard a friend or family proclaim that because his father had Alzheimer’s disease, he should be in the clear because the disease skips a generation. That’s a lot to digest — whether you’ve read research, the news or just talked to friends.

To provide some clarity, here are some brain health myths that are just myths.

One in four older adults in the United States will fall this year. Fallsalso are the No. 1 cause of injuries resulting in emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths among Ohioans 65 and older.

Perhaps you find yourself having slips in your memory. If so, here are tips to help you rev it up, along with what to do if you still have concerns. Even if you aren’t yet experiencing any challenges, these tips contain helpful ways to improve your memory.

You know your body better than anyone else — and that’s the power of the self-exam. It’s important to visit your doctor for regular checkups but, through self-exams, you can discover an impending issue as early as possible and inform your doctor. Here are four simple self-exams for older adults you can conduct at home, starting today.

In 2016, the identities of 15 million consumers were stolen — that’s about one in 16 U.S. adults, but your risk for identity theft rises the older you get. As with other forms of fraud, older adults are more likely to become victims thanks to their trusting nature.

Everyone reading this will get older. In fact, for many of us, the word “old” often elicits feelings of fear or dread.

“What was I most worried about?” pondered Ashton Applewhite during her TED talk on ageism. “Ending up drooling in some grim institutional hallway.”

Thankfully, Applewhite learned that only about 4% of older Americans need to utilize nursing homes. Another worry about aging for Applewhite? Losing her cognitive function.

“The real worry is our anxiety about memory loss,” she says. “It turns out the longer people live, the less they fear dying.”

If the number of older adults who need nursing home care is decreasing, and if we’re actually happier the older we get, why do so many of us fear aging?

Ageism. 

Once you hit 65, you’re twice as likely to be killed or injured by fires than the total population, and if you’re 85 and over, you’re four times as likely to die in a fire. 

Older adults commonly take vitamins and nutritional supplements with the goal of improving overall health and to delay the onset of age-related disease. But which ones should you add to your diet? Do older adults typically need certain supplements or vitamins? Here’s a look at vitamin and supplement considerations for older adults.