The United States has one of the most advanced countries in the world. The economy here is huge, second only to China. Technologically, we are far ahead of every other country. But when it comes to healthcare, the World Health Organization has ranked the U.S. as only the #37 country in the world. Countries ranked ahead of the U.S. that might surprise you are Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. In 2000, the best scoring country when it came to healthcare was France. One of the big reasons why the U.S. ranked so poorly was because of the way that senior care is approached.
One way that this can be improved is by helping our elderly loved ones improve what’s called their health literacy. October was dubbed National Health Literacy Month, which is more of a way of raising awareness than anything. Now that it’s November, it’s important that we keep a focus on keeping ourselves and our loved ones healthy. Health literacy is just a fancy way of explaining the little things that we do every day to keep an eye on the things that can influence our overall health. When it comes to seniors, little things like getting the right amount of exercise, keeping track of medications and knowing what medications are taken and when, and eating right are all simple ways of keeping a high level of senior health literacy.
On a more specific note, having the proper senior care for our elderly loved ones is a good way to improve this, too. For example, a professionally trained in-home caregiver will be well equipped to make sure that medications are given out correctly. They can help prepare meals to make sure that things like age related weight loss are far less likely to happen. They can also help improve safety around the house to make sure that needless injuries are prevented. An in-home caregiver is not typically a medical care, but they can still provide transportation to doctor appointments if it’s needed.
Over the long term, high levels of health literacy are linked to preventing obesity, avoiding cardiovascular disease, and longevity. For many of our elderly loved ones, it may be too late in their lives to have a huge impact in these areas, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a fruitless task. Even a small improvement in health can be helpful, and since one of our primary goals should be to help improve quality of life, this is actually a big deal. It’s even more important that we apply healthy choices to our own lives and those of our children’s. If we are able to improve health literacy at an early age, many of the problems that our older loved ones are facing may be avoided for longer. We might not be able to prevent every issue that comes along, but we can help with creating a groundwork of a healthier life where medical problems can be more easily overcome if not prevented outright. It’s a strong start at the very least.
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