What Assisted Living Residents Need To Know If They Want To Live Past 60

Every 70 seconds a senior is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. If you intend to live past the age of 60 you need to learn more about Alzheimer’s disease, especially since there is no cure. Today it is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States. Our brains change as we age just as the rest of our organs do. Most of us notice some slowed thinking and occasional problems with remembering certain things. However, serious memory loss, confusion and other major changes in the way our minds work are not a normal part of aging. These may be signs that your brain cells are failing. September 21st was World Alzheimer’s Day, when the Alzheimer’s Association joined with organizations and people around the globe to raise awareness about the disease and its impact on families. Today, 35 million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer’s as well as related forms of dementia and assisted living facilities have realized that this number is rapidly growing. Assisted living facilities are educating seniors about the deadly disease so they are aware of the signs, symptoms and possible precautionary methods.

World Alzheimer’s Day is an opportunity to raise donations and awareness about Alzheimer’s disease. There is a need for more education, support and research on this disease. As a citizen of society you can participate by joining one of the many World Alzheimer’s Day events within your community. Assisted Living Facilities celebrate this day by organizing fundraisers and events to help raise awareness. Memory Walk 2010 is a perfect example. Participants come together and walk in order to change the course of Alzheimer’s Disease. Memory Walk is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer care, support and research. Since 1989, Memory Walk has raised more than $300 million for the cause.

What Exactly Is Alzheimer’s Disease?
The human brain is your most unique and powerful organ, yet a healthy brain weighs only about three pounds. It has three main parts:
The Cerebrum fills up most of your skull. It is involved in remembering, problem solving, thinking, and feeling. It also controls movement.
The Cerebellum sits at the back of your head, under the cerebrum. It controls coordination and balance.
The Brain Stem sits beneath your cerebrum in front of your cerebellum. It connects the brain to the spinal cord and controls automatic functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure.

The real work of your brain goes on in individual cells. An adult brain contains about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, with branches that connect at more than 100 trillion points. Scientists call this dense, branching network a “neuron forest.” Signals traveling through the neuron forest form the basis of memories, thoughts and feelings. Neurons are the chief type of cell destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease. Signals that form memories and thoughts move through an individual nerve cell as a tiny electrical charge. Nerve cells connect to one another at synapses. When a charge reaches a synapse, it may trigger release of tiny bursts of chemicals called neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters travel across the synapse, carrying signals to other cells. Scientists have identified dozens of neurotransmitters.

Alzheimer’s disease disrupts both the way electrical charges travel within cells and the activity of neurotransmitters. 100 billion nerve cells! 100 trillion synapses! Dozens of neurotransmitters! This “strength in numbers” provides your brain’s raw material. Over time, our experiences create patterns in signal type and strength. These patterns of activity explain how, at the cellular level, our brains code our thoughts, memories, skills and sense of who we are. Alzheimer’s disease leads to nerve cell death and tissue loss throughout the brain. Over time, the brain shrinks dramatically, affecting nearly all of its functions.  Alzheimer’s gets worse over time, and is fatal. Visit alz.org to find a Memory Walk event in your area or locate another volunteer opportunity to help end the disease.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care Houston, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

The Return Of The Little Black Bag In Healthcare

Right around the same time some private physicians are refusing to accept new Medicare patients in fear of lower government reimbursements, another physician based concept is taking hold. The Academy of Home Care Physicians has a mission statement that promotes the art, science and practice of medicine in the home. Established in 1988, the Academy “envisions a healthcare system in which any patient who needs it can receive comprehensive primary care in their home.” Research shows that for every elderly person in a nursing home, there are three more patients equally as sick and fragile who are living at home. In a recently article published in The New England Journal of Medicine on “Why Health Care is Going Home,” Dr. Steven H. Landers stated that, “Our financing system, malpractice laws, and consumer culture all encourage utilization of costly services and have contributed to unsustainable increases in the cost of care. In home care is often less costly, and since it is highly desirable for patients, it offers a potential win–win solution.”

He added that, “The transformation of patients’ homes into central venues for health care may take years or decades, depending on how the national and institutional politics play out. New payment models are needed to cover services that haven’t previously been offered at home and to realign physicians’ incentives. Yet, ultimately, health care organizations that do not adapt to the home care imperative risk becoming irrelevant.” In today’s generation of physicians, few have been educated in medical school or continuing education to provide the kind and level of care that could be made available. Few have been educated to provide home health agencies with professional support as medical directors; fewer still have learned the advanced team techniques that allow them to work with other health professionals, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists and others by providing continuity of care across the care continuum. Concerns over reimbursement also have been a barrier.

The American Academy of Home Care Physicians serves the needs of thousands of physicians and related professionals and agencies interested in improving care of patients in the home. Members and volunteers work to reduce barriers and enhance practice education. Notable successes include fostering increased reimbursement, sponsoring multiple educational and scientific seminars and providing the practice community with a variety of helpful publications. Academy members include home care physicians who make house calls, care for homebound patients, act as home health agency medical directors or refer patients to home care agencies. Specialties include internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics, geriatrics, psychiatry, emergency medicine and more.
Other members are directors of agencies actively planning for future home care organizations, medical directors of managed care plans, nurse practitioners who make house calls, physician assistants, and administrators of medical groups interested in home care. The services provided by home care agencies and physicians are billed under a set of codes designated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Physicians, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists and physician assistants are required to oversee or directly provide progressively more sophisticated and more frequent home visits.

Beyond the licensure and certification processes, no similar evaluation mechanism exists for skills obtained through continuing education and practice experience. The Home Care Credentialing Examination fills this gap and enables home care medical providers to demonstrate their proficiency. Patients also benefit from proficiency testing and the Academy’s recognition of those who receive the credential since the exam assesses the knowledge and skills identified by respected experts as necessary to provide safe and effective medical care in the home. Upon the completion of this educational activity, the participant should be better able to:
Discuss and apply knowledge of clinical problems, effective approaches to end of life/palliative care, functionality, social services and legal/ethical concerns related to home care. Attest to his or her added competency in home care medicine by demonstrating knowledge, skills and proficiency in managing common problems faced in home care. As a public service, The American Academy of Home Care Physician’s website provides a list of its members and medical groups that provide home care.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care Chicago, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

Study Links Hearing Loss And Dementia

According to a new study from John Hopkins University and the National Institute on Aging, adults with significant hearing loss are at a much greater risk of developing dementia. The study followed 639 dementia-free adults ages 36 to 90. The participants in the study were tested for hearing loss and dementia every two years for nearly two decades. The researchers found that those with hearing loss at the beginning of the study were much more likely to develop dementia by the end, even after taking into account age and other risk factors. The risk of dementia only began to rise once hearing loss began to interfere with the ability to communicate, for example, in a noisy restaurant. The study also found that hearing loss increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but the two were not as strongly linked as hearing loss and other forms of dementia. Frank Lin, M.D., assistant professor of Otology at John Hopkins University and an author of the study says the research is the first major study that connects hearing loss to the development of dementia and could lead to additional research on the subject.

Lin says it may be that whatever causes dementia also causes hearing loss, but there is no clear evidence. He thinks it is more likely that the neurological stress of dealing with hearing loss contributes to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. “If you are out to dinner with friends at a busy restaurant and it’s very, very loud, by the time you get home you’re exhausted, because you spend so much time trying to think about the words people are saying, to decipher everything,” he says. Dementia, the insidious loss of memory, logic and language that interferes with daily living is a condition that affects millions of people worldwide and carries a heavy societal burden. After age 85, nearly half of all seniors will have some level of cognitive impairment or dementia. Without proper care, people with dementia may eat poorly and irregularly and ignore exercise and social activity, all activities that could likely improve their health.  Family caregivers are usually the first to recognize that dementia may be developing and should seek medical evaluation as soon as the symptoms are noticed.Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, afflicting about 5 percent of seniors between sixty-five and seventy-four. However, nearly half of those over the age of eighty-five are affected.  Vascular dementia is considered the second most common form of dementia.

This type of dementia is caused by reduced blood flow to parts of the brain. One type of vascular dementia can occur after a single stroke blocks the flow of blood to a large part of the brain.  In another type of vascular dementia, a series of very small strokes block small arteries. Singularly, these strokes are small enough not to cause major symptoms, but over time, their combined effect becomes noticeable. Symptoms of vascular dementia can be similar to Alzheimer’s disease. They include problems with memory, confusion and difficulty following instructions. In some cases, the impairment associated with vascular dementia can be more rapid and marked. Alzheimer’s advances slowly, gradually causing crippling brain damage with symptoms that can include paranoia.
Although the reason for the link between hearing loss and dementia is unknown, the researchers in the study suggest that a common pathology may underlie both or that the strain of decoding sounds over the years may overwhelm the brains of people with hearing loss, leaving them more vulnerable to dementia. They also speculate that hearing loss could lead to dementia by making individuals more socially isolated, a known risk factor for dementia and other cognitive disorders. Whatever the cause, the scientists report their findings may offer a starting point for interventions even as simple as hearing aids that could delay or prevent dementia by improving patients’ hearing.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care San Antonio, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

Research Shows Home Health Care Healthy For Medical System

The world’s health care system is already strained by rising costs and a shortage of qualified personnel. A recent study by the RAND Corporation found that moving care into patients’ homes is fast becoming an alternative to the high costs of institutional care. The study also identifies home health care as a major shift in the structure of the health care system, warranting consensus between patients, health care providers, insurance companies and policy makers before it can become an effective solution.
“The aging of the world’s population and fact that more diseases are treatable will create serious financial and manpower challenges for the world’s health care systems,” said Dr. Soeren Mattke, the study’s lead author and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “Moving more health care into the home setting where patients or family members can manage care could be one important solution to these challenges.”

The findings are from a global study of the needs, expectations and priorities regarding home health care among key stakeholders in six countries – China, France, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. Researchers conducted over 100 interviews with government officials, regulators, providers, insurers, manufacturers, distributors and patient organizations, as well as reviewing existing research about home health care. An increase in the world’s elderly population, coupled with better treatment for many diseases, is expected to increase the number of people living with chronic conditions and disability in the decades ahead, putting pressure on the finances and the workforce of health care systems. In the United States, for example, people age 64 and older represent 12 percent of the population, yet account for 34 percent of the nation’s total health care spending. In the United States alone, the aging population is projected to increase to 71.5 million by the year 2030, when one in five Americans will be age 65 and older. Home health care increases the chance for patients to age in place and avoid institutionalization.

While this trend sprouted in the developed world, it is increasingly taking root in developing and transitional nations. For example, Singapore has become the world’s most rapidly aging country and already 80 percent of all deaths in China are caused by chronic disease. Soeren Mattke, senior scientist at Rand said that, “by 2014, China will have more people living with chronic disease than the entire U.S. population.” The demand for non institutional care in these countries has spurred the development of the home health care concept. Home health care is an attractive solution because it empowers patients to self manage their conditions to a larger extent and helps to shift care from high cost institutional and professional settings to patients’ homes and the community. Such a change could both save money and ease pressure on health systems suffering from worker shortages and capacity constraints, researchers say.

The best evidence so far comes from the U.S. Veterans Health Administration, which uses remote monitoring equipment to help veterans manage diabetes, hypertension and chronic heart failure. The 2008 VA study of 17,025 home telehealth patients showed the devices cut the average number of days hospitalized by 25 percent and produced a 19 percent reduction in hospital admissions.
Home health care technology spans a broad spectrum from basic diagnostic tools, such as glucose meters, to advanced telemedicine solutions. Those advances have pushed the frontier of care management further into the home setting. The advances have the potential to not only support current care delivery, but to fundamentally change the model to a more efficient and more patient centered one, according to the report.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care San Diego, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

New Alzheimer’s Scan For Early Diagnoses

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, a brain disorder that primarily affects the elderly. It is named after a German doctor, Alois Alzheimer, who in 1996 noticed anomalies in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of a strange mental illness. There were abnormal clumps called amyloid plaques and tangled bundles of fibers, both of which are the most common signs of Alzheimer’s. Other brain changes can occur as well. Nerve cells die in areas of the brain vital to memory and other mental abilities, and the connections between nerve cells are disrupted, impairing thinking and memory. The disease is slow moving and in its earliest stages, may merely appear to be mild forgetfulness and be confused with age-related memory change. There may be problems remembering recent events or activities, or the names of familiar people or objects. As the disease progresses, the forgetfulness becomes more severe, interfering with daily activities, such as brushing one’s teeth. There are problems speaking, understanding, reading or writing, and eventually the brain damage becomes so severe as to require total care.

In January, the FDA’s Drug Advisory Committee voted unanimously to recommend approval of a new imaging agent to detect early Alzheimer’s disease. The agent, florbetapir, is produced by Eli Lilly and Company under the name Amyvid. Amyvid would be injected into the patient and used in conjunction with PET (positron emission tomography) scans to illuminate and detect the beta amyloid plaques in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s disease. PET scans performed with Amyvid would allow physicians to provide prognostic information to patients and their families even at a time of limited therapeutic approaches to treat Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, the availability of imaging agents that can reliably detect amyloid plaques will be an absolute prerequisite to select patients that may benefit from future specific anti-amyloid based Alzheimer therapies. Experts agree the test could become a critical part of detecting Alzheimer’s before symptoms take hold, but a clinical reality is far from imminent.  Although years away, researchers envision the amyloid PET scan could join the ranks of other routine mid-life surveillance tests such as colonoscopy and mammography for early detection. Before FDA approval, manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company must demonstrate that standards for interpreting brain scans can be made consistent enough to routinely guarantee an accurate diagnosis.

Because there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s, Dr. Sam Gandy, the Mount Sinai Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease Research in NYC acknowledges the test may not be considered worth the cost even if the FDA approves the recommendation. He added that, “”Medicare may decide that the added value does not merit reimbursement without a meaningful intervention.” Since 2007, molecular imaging has been utilized in improving diagnoses of Alzheimer’s and other dementias with PET scans using other imaging agents such as FDG. FDG stands for fluorodeoxyglucose, a short-lived radioactive form of sugar injected into people during PET scans to show activity levels in different parts of the brain. In Alzheimer’s, low activity is mostly in the back part of the brain; while frontal lobe dementia occurs in the front. In 2008, researchers in France developed an automated system for measuring brain tissue loss using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. In Alzheimer’s disease, the buildup of certain proteins in the brain leads to brain cell and brain tissue death; the hardest-hit part of the brain is the hippocampus, which affects memory.The automated MRI system helps in diagnosing Alzheimer’s by speeding up the process of visually measuring shrinkage in the hippocampus consistent with the disease.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care Philadelphia, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

National Alzheimer’s Project Act Signed Into Legislation

The fact that the United States Congress voted unanimously on any legislation set before them, sent an extremely powerful signal. The National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), signed by the President on January 4, 2011 turns a concept of need into a law of the land, a coordinated national plan to overcome the Alzheimer’s crisis. Passage of NAPA will ensure the coordination and evaluation of all national efforts in Alzheimer’s research, clinical care, institutional, home and community based programs and their outcomes. The new National Alzheimer’s Project office will be located within the Department of Health and Human Services and will oversee federal research on Alzheimer’s disease to develop a plan to combat the disease and eventually develop a cure. The office will be funded within the existing budget and does not require an appropriation.This is a major victory for the 5.3 million people who live with Alzheimer’s in this country and their nearly 11 million caregivers who take care of them. NAPA will confront one of the most feared and costly diseases that stands to plaque the baby boomer generation as they move into their senior years.

Given the scale of the Alzheimer epidemic and the growing number of Americans directly affected every single day, NAPA will provide an essential framework within the government that recognizes the Alzheimer crisis is no longer emerging, but is already here.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities that are serious enough to interfere with daily life, worsens over time, and is fatal. Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 50 to 70 percent of dementia cases. Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging; although the greatest known risk factor is increasing age, and the majority of people with Alzheimer’s are 65 and older. Alzheimer’s is not just a disease of old age however. Roughly, 10 percent of people with the disease have early onset Alzheimer’s that can appear when someone is in their 40s or 50s. For a nearly a decade, advocates of the disease have been petitioning for federal involvement to address the crisis.  In 2003, longtime advocate for those with disease, the Alzheimer’s Association was at the forefront of the effort to add early onset of the disease to the Compassionate Allowances List making it possible for victims to receive Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income. Inclusion on the SSA’s list was not accomplished until 2010. In 2007, then Speaker Newt Gingrich and AA’s Robert Egge made the case for creation of a federal Alzheimer strategy with an article, Developing a National Alzheimer’s Strategy Equal to the Epidemic.

Written by Egge, it garnered national attention when it was published in The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Also in 2007, the association launched the Alzheimer’s Study Group at a Capitol Hill Conference. In 2009, they released their final report calling for federal legislation to attack the challenges of the disease, currently the sixth leading cause of death in the nation. Based on the Alzheimer’s Study Group recommendations and following consultations with the Alzheimer’s Association, controversial former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) introduced a measure to create a collaborated system for researching, treating and eliminating Alzheimer’s disease. The measure was introduced to Congress as the first National Alzheimer’s Project Act in July 2009. After various draftings in 2010, the bill progressed through the legislative branch until final congressional approval in December 2010 and the presidential signing in January 2011. The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer care, support, advocacy, and research. Their mission is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease through the advancement of research; to provide and enhance care and support for all affected; and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. Their vision, now supported by the federal government, is a world without Alzheimer’s.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care Phoenix, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.

Napping In The Afternoon Can Improve Learning & Memory For Seniors

Napoleon Bonaparte napped because he had chronic insomnia and could only sleep about three hours a night.
Thomas Edison napped in lieu of sleeping at night. He believed that sleeping was a waste of time, “a deplorable regression to the primitive state of a caveman,” but he napped frequently and for long periods. Albert Einstein felt that his daily naps “refreshed the mind” and made him more creative. During World War II, Winston Churchill scheduled his cabinet meetings around his daily catnaps. Salvador Dali napped in his armchair, holding a spoon over a metal pan on the floor below. When Dali hit REM sleep and lost muscle control, the spoon would fall from his grip, bang the metal pan and awaken him. Studies show that taking a nap is a great way to increase alertness and reaction times, improve mood, and reduce accidents. For many people, napping is also a highly pleasurable experience.

Although most assisted living communities have activity-packed calendars, many seem to leave a couple of hours open in the afternoons so residents can rest or simply have free time. Recent research is providing evidence that a well-timed afternoon nap may be the best way to combat sleepiness, improve performance, and overcome the late day grogginess commonly known as the “midday dip.” Gregory Belenky, MD, Research Professor and Director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University, says, “A large number of the world’s people divide their sleep into two blocks, with the afternoon sleep called a siesta in most Spanish speaking countries. Mediterranean countries have always kept attuned to the biorhythms that American culture tries to ignore, and they’ve found a way to work around the body’s internal clock. It’s called the riposo in Italy.

Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece traditionally observe an early afternoon shutdown that begins at noon to 1:30pm and runs until 2:30 to 4pm.  Museums, most churches, shops, businesses, just about everything except restaurants, lower the shutters and lock the doors so that proprietors can either go home or head to a local trattoria for a long lunch and perhaps a snooze during the day’s hottest hours. There are a variety of studies that prove that nighttime sleep improves learning. The idea is that newly learned knowledge or skills are integrated in the brain during sleep. But do naps serve the same role? A new study by researchers at Harvard University has provided strong evidence that it does. The Harvard researchers found that taking a 45 minute nap helps improve learning and memory and has a benefit similar to that of nighttime sleep.

Combining nighttime sleep with napping has twice the positive effect. It is even possible that divided sleep is more recuperative than sleep taken in a single block. Author, Cathleen Schine, romantically describes her families’ love affair with the art of napping when she writes, “naps float, weightless and temporal, they are nature’s whim.” Although appreciative of the Harvard research, when describing her son’s early inability to sleep, she said, “I was even more grateful for a family legacy that taught me, and allowed me to teach him, that not everything has to be useful, not everything has to lead to something more.” She adds that, “Sometimes, for no reason and with no purpose, you can just curl up on the couch, feel the soft breeze, and drift into a soft, delicious sleep that leads to nowhere in particular, and back again.” When fatigue sets in, a quick nap can do wonders for your mental and physical stamina.

800Seniors.com is a leading referral system in the Elderly Healthcare industry. We are located on 5400 Atlantis Court, Moorpark, California 93021. 800Seniors.com provides the perfect match between seniors searching for health care provisions such as Home Care Chicago, Home Health, Skilled Nursing, Hospice Care, Medical Supplies, as well as a variety of Assisted Living Facilities and Care Homes nationwide. Take the confusion and hassle out of the search. For more information call 1-800-768-8221, visit http://800seniors.com or fax us your details at (805)517-1623.

About The Author: Gloria Ha’o Schneider is an expert in senior citizen and baby boomer issues. Her topics revolve around Senior Living and Healthcare to provide the latest information to this demographic as well as their families and loved ones.