Kendal at Home Blog

If you’ve started planning for your estate, you have likely come across the terms ‘will’ and ‘living trust.’ While the two sound similar, and both allow you to name beneficiaries of your property, a will and living trust serve different purposes. 

However, if you haven’t begun the estate planning process, you’re not alone. A survey found that 40 percent of adults aged 53-71 do not have a will or living trust in place. While no one wants to think about end-of-life planning, having a will or living trust upon your death can save your family emotional stress.

Here is what to keep in mind when considering estate planning documents like a will or living trust.

Accidents and injuries can happen to anyone, at virtually any time, but older adults are more prone to certain types of them and may need special care. So, to prepare yourself for potentially helping an injured person, you can check the Red Cross website to see when they are offering first aid classes, including CPR certification courses, in your community.

Whether you’re traveling across the country to visit family or friends, heading to a festive party or simply out shopping, the holidays can be busy. This time of year can certainly be enjoyable, but it can also bring an increased risk of sickness thanks to increased travel and all those get-togethers.

Keep yourself—and your family—healthy this holiday season with these simple tips.

Have you thought about who would make medical decisions for you if you were unable to make them for yourself?

According to researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly half (47 percent) of hospitalized older adults required some degree of surrogate decision-making, with 23 percent requiring all medical decisions be made via surrogate. Of those 47 percent who required at least one decision be made via surrogate, 57 percent of those decisions involved life-sustaining care.

When you think of technology that allows you to remain independent, what comes to mind? Is it those medical alert devices you wear around your neck? Or smart watches that monitor your heart rate and can detect falls? 

There are myriad technologies available to help you remain independent, and not all of them are used to alert caregivers of a medical issue; some simply make your life easier. Here, we look at three of them and explore how to erase the stigma that might come with adopting these technologies.

If you’ve recently been ill or hospitalized, had surgery or are otherwise not feeling your best, it can be especially challenging to advocate for yourself. That’s true when you have concerns about treatments you’ve been receiving or a medication that’s been prescribed. It can be challenging to decipher today’s medical lingo, and it’s easy to receive a medical bill that you don’t understand or don’t believe you owe.

And, that’s where a patient advocate can come in.

On July 31, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) shared that the average basic premium for Medicare Part D—the prescription drug plan—is expected to decline for the second year in a row. The basic premiums should drop from $33.59 monthly in 2018 to $32.50 in 2019.

Cold and flu season can be an especially dangerous time for older adults. That’s because, as we age, our immune systems lose effectiveness, making a bout with a cold or flu virus more serious—or even deadly. 

Research has shown a case of the flu can increase your risk of developing pneumonia and even heart attack or stroke.

There are several things you can do to prevent exposure to cold and flu viruses and protect yourself if you’ve been exposed.

The vast majority of influenza(flu)-related deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), occur in people over the age of 65, so experts recognized a need for a stronger vaccination for this demographic. 

In response, a high-dose vaccine was created and first became available in the United States in 2009. A study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2017, shows that the high-dose version of the vaccine may in fact be more effective, at least in seasons with dominant H3N2 strains of influenza.

As you age, you may notice your energy levels aren’t as high as they once were and you may even need an afternoon nap. But are these changes part and parcel of the aging process? How exactly does the aging process affect fatigue?