Last week I shared with you the presentation of Dr. Jim Concotelli, from Brookdale Senior Living, who spoke on The Ageless Spirit at the Senior Advocacy Symposium hosted by Assisted Transition Senior Living and Care Finders.
This week I am going to highlight two other speakers and provide you with information that may help you understand your own health care and well-being options so that you can maximize your chances for prevention and/or early detection of diseases and disorders.
Dr. Dana Cowles, D.O., Medical Director, from Health Assurance Inc. (www.teamhealthassurance.com) outlined the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit. His perspective is that we do not have a health care system but what we do have is a chronic disease and management system. Dr. Cowles left his role in a hospital emergency room and decided to practice medicine in the way he saw as most beneficial to the patient, with a focus on prevention. His team includes a pharmacist, a nutritionist, a personal trainer and himself, a primary care physician.
Dr. Cowles focused on the beauty of the Medicare Screening Annual visit which is 100 percent covered by Medicare if you have not had one in the past twelve months. There is no copay and no charge for this visit but your doctor must create a Personalized Prevention Plan with you to have the visit fully covered. Only 5 percent of the population has this visit completed even though its long term benefits can make such a difference to the patient. It includes doing preventative exams and asking and answering questions about your lifestyle, practices and overall health. This will save you and the medical system significant long term costs in health care.
Having good health care and feeling your optimum offers people hope on the longevity ladder. When you do not feel well or cannot operate at your personal best, depression can take over. It has been shown the older people have a high risk of suicide when they do not have hope for their future.
Loss of mobility is the #1 cause of depression in the elderly and this is often because loss of mobility can come on suddenly from a broken hip or other incident that immediately limits movement. Correlating to this, medicines are the primary reason people fall. Every medication can have an effect on you, and added to cocktails, beer and wine; the liver can simply not metabolize the combination and ends up having to work 2-3x as hard to do its job. Medications and alcohol create a new metabolite in your system and these compounds over the days, weeks and years, ultimately resulting in dizziness and falls.
Part of the Annual Medicare Wellness Visit should include doing a full medication review with an analysis to ensure that your fall risks are minimized, you can drive safely with the medications you are taking, and that incidental problems are minimized. The body needs to be looked at as a complete system and you should avail yourself to the preventative tests and screenings that will help you with longevity, lower medical costs and a positive outlook for your future. Your Annual Wellness Visit is your right and will provide you with a Personalized Prevention Plan for good health maximization.
Another aspect of feeling good about yourself is hearing what is going on in conversation with others. Hearing care and wellness is often delayed, explained Barbara Donohoe from Audibel (www.audibelnorthcentralflorida.com). Hearing loss becomes evident to others before the person realizes it themselves. It is important to address hearing loss early on and not ignore symptoms such as tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. People have been told there is no cure but in fact, there is relief that can be offered.
Amazingly, there are more than 31 million people who have hearing loss. Alzheimer’s, depression and brain dysfunction have all been linked to this. Hearing impairment leads to cognitive dysfunction. If you seek assistance for hearing loss, great improvement is possible. Unfortunately, the average individual waits seven years to do something about hearing loss which can affect speech and memory of words.
There are emotions with hearing loss. People who have been married for 50 years will stop speaking to one another because one of the spouses, usually the man, cannot hear. More men lose their hearing than women. There can be denial and defensiveness for the person who is struggling with hearing and they withdraw themselves from the situation and stop engaging.
How do you know if you have a hearing problem? First and foremost, if one person has hearing loss, the whole family has a hearing problem because of the dynamics it creates. If you have to constantly ask what someone said, if you are accusing others of mumbling, if you are missing parts of conversation so that you cannot participate, take a hearing test! If you family or friends are saying that you are always asking them to repeat themselves, or that you are ignoring them, or you are not a part of the conversation, take a hearing test!
You will notice innumerable ads for hearing aids in the media. Do not be misled by solutions which sound too good to be true at a cost which is less than a nice dinner out. Go to a reputable hearing business of ENT and have a trained professional do the tests and offer you the options which will improve your individual situation.
If you should need hearing aids, here are some tips for shopping for them:
- Find a provider who can listen to your concerns.
- Look at the features the provider offers-free lifetime adjustments, loss and damage insurance, snow bird friendly (do they have other locations outside of where you live?).
- Complementary hearing tests should be offered along with an audiogram explained to you and options provided.
- Ask for a demo with different hearing aids.
- Fittings are critical and you need time to adjust to the hearing aids.
- Hearing aid batteries should be estimated at $40-60 a year.
- Hearing aids can be expensive. Financing should be available.
- There is also the “Hear Now Program” from the Starkey Foundation (www.starkeyhearingfoundation.org), as well as potential insurance and Veteran’s benefits.
Take time to take care of you! Use the availability of preventative medical care and tests to optimize your wellness and longevity!
Send in your questions and comments to Jane Elise Bloom, The Other Daughter [email protected] 425 299 6020 www.theotherdaughter.org
