The stress of Hurricane Sandy, the superstorm that hit New Jersey two years ago, led to an increase in the number of strokes and heart attacks within the elderly population of those areas that were impacted the most. This isn’t a unique occurrence; studies have consistently found that natural disasters tend to do this. The reason should be pretty obvious: the stress levels were raised in a large way, and the people that are most susceptible to these things will naturally have an increased number of actual attacks.
Stress happens in our everyday lives, and within the lives of the elderly. There are certain things that you can do to help reduce undue stress levels in your loved ones’ lives. There are many reports that indicate that relocating a senior citizen can create stressful situations, especially when dementia is involved. Aging in place has become a common catchphrase because of this, but there is a strength behind this. Keeping your elderly loved ones in a place where they are comfortable and things are familiar is an easy way to eliminate this. For most, in-home care seems to be more than sufficient when it comes to the levels of care given and it keeps your loved one right where they’ve always been. It doesn’t get any more familiar than that.
Follow up research has shown that there were about 70 more heart attacks than normally would have been expected in the two weeks following the storm than what would have been expected under normal circumstances. This was a 22 percent increase in the occurrences of these, and the mortality rate of these went up by over 30 percent. So, not only did the extreme stress of this make it so a heart attack was more common, it made them more deadly, too. For strokes, the number of cases went up by about 7 percent in the high impact areas. In low impact areas of New Jersey, the heart attack rate went up by less than 1 percent, and the stroke rate remained unchanged. A lot of this could be accounted for because of a decrease in the quality of healthcare, but the fact remains that the issues would not have begun unless the catalyst of stress had not been introduced.
You can’t prevent a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy, but you can prevent the unnecessary moving around that a lot of seniors go through by planning ahead when it comes to senior care. If in-home care isn’t appropriate for your parent, then getting them where they need to be when it becomes needed, and then keeping them in a single location, is the best policy for reducing stress, and hopefully giving them a higher quality of life as a result. Having a working knowledge of your loved one’s needs is a good way to get started on making sure that their senior care is as seamless as it can be. This way, you will account for the fact that extra stress can increase premature mortality. In this way, having a good senior care plan in place can add years to your loved one’s life.
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