Meningitis

We are thinking about meningitis today because it is World Meningitis Day.  This is an important day because this disease is a worldwide problem and the hope is that it can be eradicated by the year 2030.

You may not be aware of details about meningitis so we hope to share information to help explain a bit to help to raise awareness.  

Meningitis is an illness that causes inflammation of the tissues that surround your brain and spinal cord.  The two most common forms are viral and bacterial.

In the United States, the viral form is up to 75,000 each year.  Any age can contract meningitis, including the elderly.   The more serious bacterial illness has about 2,600 cases in a year, mostly in children ages 5 and under.

• Viral meningitis is the most common and while it can be painful, it will often resolve without medical intervention.

• Bacterial meningitis is much more serious as it can be deadly and you must receive immediate treatment.

Additionally, there are a few other forms but these are extremely rare.

You contract meningitis from viral infections however this does only happen in a few people.  

Your most common symptoms would be a sudden fever, headache and a stiff next.  A diagnosis is obtained by blood tests, lumbar puncture or an EEG.  You could also have a CT scan or MRI if needed.

The key to treating this illness is early detection.  This helps determine the course of treatment and improve your chances of recovery.

Private Home Health Care would love to have this disease wiped out.  We hope that sharing some facts about this illness will help spread awareness.

Rosh Hashanah

Today at sundown begins the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, meaning Head of the Year.  This holiday celebrates the beginning of the Jewish calendar year. In the Jewish new year it begins the year of 5785.  

If you are Jewish this two day holiday represents the beginning of a new year but it also has a more solemn piece to it.  These two days mark the beginning of the Ten Days of Repentance.

The ten days that start with Rosh Hashanah end with Yom Kippur, a high holy day of repentance.  Over the ten days you should reflect on your life and contemplate any sins that you many need to atone for at Yom Kippur.

For this holiday if you are a practicing person, you would attend prayer services at your synagogue and spend time with your family. At the service you would hear the sounding of the shofa, or ram’s horn.  It is important to think about how you have been living your life.

Additionally, you light candles each evening and eat traditional foods during seder, a meal with family.  Apples and honey are enjoyed which represent a happy and sweet new year.  Your meal also includes challah bread, pomegranates and fish heads.

The symbolic foods are called simanim.  Other food might include beets, pumpkins, leeks, gourds, spinach and dates.  Often a new fruit or food is eaten to say a special blessing called, the shehecheyanu blessing.

These next ten days are an important part of the faith of our Jewish neighbors.

Private Home Health Care respects the traditions of our Jewish friends and we plan on greeting them with “shana tova” to say Happy New Year.

Knitting

Knitting and crocheting are two of the most popular yarn crafts in the United States.  

If you are a knitter do you know that it’s a hobby that gives you many health benefits, especially for seniors.

Physically, Knitting is an activity that you can do anywhere and it’s also very low impact to your body.  It helps improve eye-hand coordination, your dexterity and fine motor skills.  

If you have arthritis the movement helps the joints and additionally it can lower stress and your blood pressure.

Mentally, your benefits continue.  Knitting requires focus along with attention to detail and at times problem solving skills.  These all help with your cognitive abilities.

When you knit you can get a feeling of accomplishment. It is also an activity that can help with isolation or loneliness if you can find a group to knit with.

As with everything, yarn has increased in cost so that can make the hobby a bit more expensive.  For those of you seniors however, if you can afford it knitting has many benefits both physically and mentally so it’s a great hobby.

Furthermore, knitting can just be plain fun!  It’s an activity that you can enjoy for a long time.  Bring on the scarves, mittens and sweaters!

Private Home Health Care is thinking that knitting might be a great hobby to begin.  The fall and winter seem like great seasons to start.

World Deaf Day

This Sunday is World Deaf Day.  It’s a day to raise awareness about those with hearing loss.  There have also been some very accomplished people who were not a part of the hearing world. 

You and I as we age are most likely going to experience some hearing loss.  This is a natural course of life.  There are those people however who have been born deaf so they’ve never experienced hearing sounds.

For those of us with hearing it can be hard to understand what life is like for a non-hearing person.  We perhaps don’t know the best way to communicate with them other than sign language which is not something taught to us in school.

According to one deaf person there are some suggestions on how you can best communicate:

1.  Be patient.  It can be hard at first but you can also write what you are saying down or use your phone to help.
2. Get their attention first.  Wave or tap the person’s shoulder before you talk.
3. Ask questions, don’t assume.  Don’t be afraid to ask the deaf person questions about his or her self.
4. Speak clearly.  The deaf person may be trying to lip read.  Speak normally and don’t force it.
5. Don’t give up.  If at first communication is hard, try and try again.

Your life is not over if you are deaf.  Sign language is a huge help in communicating although not everyone in the list below had access to it.  Some deaf people have had great accomplishments.

Beethoven, deaf at age 46 composed beautiful music and Thomas Edison was deaf in one ear and had significant hearing loss in the other but that did not stop his inventions. 

Additionally, Helen Keller was deaf and blind but she earned a BA degree and became a disability rights activist.   Marlee Matlin is the only deaf person to win an Oscar for a film and she has written three books and been an advocate for deaf rights.

Private Home Health Care wants to be aware of the issues that our deaf friends have to deal with during their day.  We will take some time this Sunday to raise our awareness.

Dreams

Have you had any dreams lately?  Dreams can happen at any age from the very young to the very old.

Today, we find dreams very interesting.  Not nightmares because they are too scary but regular dreams that all of us have.    

No one has a definitive answer for why we dream so that’s not on the agenda for today.  We can however talk about when we dream, types of dreams and common themes of our dreams.

When do you dream?

The most common time is during the REM part of your sleep.  That’s a time in your sleep when your eyes move more rapidly behind your eyes, your heart rate increases and your breathing gets irregular.  

REM sleep sounds a bit alarming but it’s a perfectly normal part of sleep for all of us.  It usually lasts about two hours each night.

What are the types of dreams?

A lucid dream is when you are aware that you are actively dreaming.  A vivid dream is realistic and has clear content.  Bad dreams are of course when they make you scared and recurring dreams are ones that happen over and over with the same content.

What are some common themes for each of us?

Have you ever dreamt of losing your teeth?  We have.  Have you had a loss, a big change in your life or are you overly stressed?

What about a dream about snakes?  Has this happened to you? This could be giving you a warning or represent a personal transformation for you.

Did you dream that you were pregnant (this could be at any age)?  Are you experiencing a new or exciting development in your life?

We at Private Home Health Care find dreams very interesting.  There are many discussions about dreams and some people who enjoy interpreting them.  See if you can remember any of your dreams and share them with a friend. You never know what you might discover.

A New Season

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Fall Equinox, a new season.

It feels as if we were just talking about Summer and now here we are again at the next change of the seasons.

You may feel as we do that time seems to go by very quickly at times.  This new season can also bring a few feelings with it.

Sadness could be one of those feelings.  You may feel sad that the warm summer days are behind us.  Cooler weather arrives and right behind that is the colder weather of the winter months.

Happiness may be another.  Your favorite season could be the Fall with all of the beautiful color changes in the leaves, the chance to pick apples or take a walk in the woods with a light jacket.  It’s not too hot and not too cold.  Some say the perfect season.

To be positive, it’s great to embrace all the beautiful changing colors of the leaves as this new season begins.  It turns out that changing into this season is shared in many places.  

Our home in New England is one area but there’s also an Arboretum in Chicago for those in the Midwest.  Internationally Kyoto, Japan, Iceland, Ontario, Canada and Bavaria (Germany) all share in the color and festivals of the Fall.

Whatever your feelings are, it feels important to make the most of what every season has to offer.  Life can go by very fast so the phrase “carpe diem” feels like a good motto to follow.

Private Home Health Care is looking forward to the colors of Fall.  We may take a trip up North on a bright sunny day to enjoy the full effects of  what nature has to offer in this new season.

Apple Picking

It’s apple picking season in New England from now until the end of October. Do you like to go apple picking in the fall? What kind of apples do you like?

We are lucky because we have many orchards to choose from in our area.  Most have a lot of apples from ones we know, like macintosh, honey crisps and red delicious. There are some uncommon names too like Northern Spy, Gravestein and Baldwin.

We have local orchards and some farther away to make it a day trip::

Brooksby Farm in Peabody

Russell Orchards in Ipswich

Smolak Farms in North Andover

Cider Farm Hill in Amesbury

Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stow

Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton

You can walk out or in some cases, take a hayride to the orchard.  You pay ahead to pick or pick and then pay depending on what you get.

Additionally, in most places you’ll be tempted with delicious treats like apple cider donuts, apple pisces and apple cider.  It’s hard not to get a little something extra!

Wherever you go it’s a fun time and you end up with delicious apples that are so good for you.

Private Home Health Care looks forward to apple picking season.  We love to eat them whole or enjoy them as homemade applesauce or a sweet treat.

Pawpaws

Are you excited that it’s pawpaw season?  You know that delicious fruit that takes like a combination of mango, bananas, berries and pineapple.

Never heard of it?  Well, now you can say that you have and after reading this blog not only will you know more about it but you also might find you want to try it.

Pawpaws have been around since the indigenous people who started growing them. They would eat them and then use the bark to make rope and clothing.

It is the largest edible fruit native to North America.  Its size is between 2-6 inches long and 1-3 inches wide.  Not actually too large but like most fruits it’s full of health benefits.

You eat the inside only of the pawpaw and you’ll taste a sweet, tropical taste with a custard-like texture.  Think about what we said earlier, the flavors of mango, banana, berries and pineapple.  What could taste better?

A pawpaw is low in calories and full of vitamins and nutrients. You will especially enjoy the Vitamin C, Magnesium, Manganese and Iron. The amount of Vitamin C is more than an apple or a banana.

Additionally, if you are looking for a few carbs, a pawpaw can help with that with about 18 grams.

Now we hear that pawpaws can be tricky to find at your local grocery store.  If you do, and we hope you do, make sure the fruit has a strong fruity and floral aroma and it is soft to the touch like a ripe avocado or peach.

Private Home Health Care is going in search of this fruit because it sounds delicious and we love the health benefits.  We hope you can find some to enjoy.

When Have You Listened?

Today we are thinking about the senior citizens in our lives.  These seniors make up a little over eleven percent of the population in our country.

Do you know anyone over the age of 75 or 80?  If you answered yes, have you recently sat down and listened closely to what he or she has to say?

Recently we listened to a discussion about how someone wished that he had listened to his grandparents more.  He was thinking about how he would have liked their stories of what they lived through in their lives.  They are gone now so it’s too late.

This made us think about the older people in our lives and when was the last time we really listened to them.

It’s not always easy to really listen. Sometimes it’s because we are thinking about what we want to say in response to the discussion.  Other times we are too distracted by our own busy lives and it’s hard to stop.

It might be a good idea in the future to reach out, spend time with and listen to an older person in your life.  There could be so many unheard stories to be shared. You might discover something you never knew.

Additionally, listening to someone who is perhaps not as busy or social can do wonders and make them feel useful and happy.  Having someone take the time to listen can be a great way to improve someone’s life for a while.

Private Home Health Care works with many of our elderly population.  We work hard to be good listeners and give compassionate care to everyone.  If you have the chance, we hope you take an opportunity to listen too.

National Linguine Day

This Sunday, August 15 is National Linguine Day.  

We find it interesting that there is a day set aside for one type of pasta, especially where there are between 27 and 51 different types of pastas available.

We begin with the history of linguine.  It is said to come from the Liguria region in the northwest region of Italy.  The belief is that it’s been around for close to 400 years, who knew?

Like us, some of you may think that a type of pasta is merely a type of pasta but linguine may look like spaghetti but it’s actually made differently.

Spaghetti, and fettuccine, is made by rolling the dough flat and then cutting the pasta into ribbons, not so for linguine.  You need a specially shaped die and then you push the pasta dough through to make the linguine.

Linguine actually means “little tongues” in Italian.  It makes a bit more sense know that you know the difference with other pastas.

What about different recipes?  When do you use linguine versus spaghetti?  

Chef’s consider linguine perfect for other recipes with pesto, olive oil or cream sauces.  Think sauces on the lighter side rather than a bolognese sauce.  You can of course use it for whatever you think works.

Additionally, if you are looking for a narrower form of linguine for a recipe check out linguettine or linguette fine.  

Private Home Health Care loves the diversity of linguine.  It can be used in Chinese dishes like lo mein, chow mein and sesame noodles.  Mangia!