Low Sodium Diet #IX: Making Choices that Lower the Count
Physicians are asking many of our parents to lower their sodium intake, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers some education materials and tips.
The CDC’s monthly public health program, Vital Signs, provides detailed information on public health issues, and its mission is to encourage people to take steps that change behavior and help them lead healthier lives.
The February 2012 report focuses on lowering dietary sodium and includes a downloadable fact sheet with most of the educational information on the Vital Signs site. The graphic below comes from the sodium tip sheet, also downloadable, that illustrates steps that an individual can take to lower daily sodium intake.
The trick, of course, is finding these lower-sodium products in the grocery store, especially challenging for elders, who are less able to go to several stores to locate the appropriate foods.
Different Falls – Different Interventions
If you have aging parents who falls — and recently one of my parents took a spill — read the article about senior falling in the September 2010 Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Mobilize Boston, the organization that conducted the research stated on its website that, ”The purpose of the study is to collect information that will help us learn how older adults can maintain their health and independence longer.” The article abstract is free, but the article itself requires payment (or you can visit the library at your local hospital).
Identifying the differences between senior falls that occurred inside and those that occurred outside, the Mobilize Boston Study followed a cohort of 765 randomly selected men and women, most over 70 years old. Researchers collected data through questionnaires and medical examinations. During a median follow-up period of 21.7 months, 1,122 total falls occurred, consisting of 598 indoors and 524 outdoors. All study participants were Boston, Massachusetts residents, and they reported falls as they occurred.
Becoming A Grown-up Child
One day in April 2007 my husband and I were the adult kids in our families — we are the only adult children
— and the next day we became what we laughingly call “real grown-ups,” helping first one, then two, and increasingly all three of our parents. It’s time to give back, and we do so willingly and happily. However the process is not easy, and it is not free from anxiety and tension. Check out the As Our Parents Age About page to learn more about the mission of this blog.
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As Our Parents Age by Marti Weston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on work at AsOurParentsAge.wordpress.com and AsOurParentsAge.net
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by emailing As Our Parents Age. To learn more about this blog go to the AsYourParentsAge About page.
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