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There are more and more seniors retiring every year. In fact, we are going to be in the majority over the next decade. Our health care organizations are already reeling over the increased requirements from seniors and changes to health care needs. The bottom line for senior health care solutions is that we can hope for help from government health care or we can increase the odds of having a healthy life by taking care of our selves to decrease the potential need for hospital care. After all who wants to wait in a clinic or hospital for hours at a time or have to deal with increasing levels of disability. We may not be able to eliminate these issues, but we can surely improve our lifestyles by taking care of ourselves. The following are a few ideas about what you can do regardless of your age or general health.

Senior Health Care Solutions – What You can Do

The following is a general list of potential solutions for people of all ages with a particular focus on seniors. Obviously each of these suggestions should be tailored to your age and ability. We will expand on these ideas a bit later.

• Tailored Exercise programs
• Stay active even in old age
• Manage your diet, add vitamins as needed
• Maintain proper weight for your body
• Active social life with friends and groups
• Keep up with friends
• Ask for help when needed from family and professional groups
• Stimulate the brain as well as the body

Tailored Exercise Program – age, ability, and general health will dictate what you can do and how aggressively you follow your exercise regime. The point is to get out there and run, walk, stroll, play sports, take up golf or whatever you enjoy, just get moving for at least 15 minutes every day. You need to get your heart rate up and increase your breathing rate to get any real benefit.

Use the above ideas on exercise as an example to apply to the other ideas we have included in this post. for more posts about baby boomer health care, click here.

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What are the baby boomer health care solutions that are practical and sensible? There is lots of discussion and debate about Obama health care, how much it will cost and who should have it. But what can each person do to ensure that there retired years are as healthy as possible? They want to have a quality lifestyle during the years after completing their career? We do not know the answer for everyone, but there are some things that can be followed by each individual. It really means taking personal responsibility for your own health, to look after yourself and to follow through on health issues when there is something serious to deal with.  Sine diet is a major part of our health we are starting a series of posts about this subject and we hope that baby boomers and seniors find this helpful.

Baby Boomer Health Care Solutions – What You can Do

The following is a general list of solutions for people of all ages. Obviously they should be tailored to your age and ability. More on that a little bit later.

• Exercise
• Stay active
• Manage your diet
• Maintain proper weight for your body
• Active social life
• Keep up with friends
• Ask for help when needed
• Stimulate the brain as well as the body

Basically it is all about maintaining a healthy body and a health brain. Sometimes serious health issues get in the way, but there is lots you can do regardless of your health. Take exercise for example.

Exercise – maybe you cannot run around the block any longer. Can you walk around the block, can you walk in the mall if it is too cold in the winter? Can you use a walker to go up and down the hall a bunch of times. Whatever your capability is, keep on exercising to strengthen the heart and the lungs as well as your muscles. These are the most important muscles in your body next to your brain.

Apply the same general approach to the other items in our list to ensure that you can continue to live a high quality of life in your retirement. For more posts on health care solutions, click here.

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Everyone is concerned about the cost of healthcare during our old age. However, did you know that there are a number of steps that you can take to mitigating health care costs in old age? They will also help to ensure that you lead an enjoyable lifestyle during your senior years? There are always healthcare issues that we can’t avoid and have nothing to do with, diet, exercise or lifestyle. Taking these steps can improve the odds of having a healthier life during old age and mitigating healthcare costs during that time frame. Let’s all agree that anytime you can improve your quality of life, why would we not take advantage of these opportunities? This is such an important issue for all baby boomers as we age in place. What are some of the steps that we can take with regard to mitigating healthcare costs in old age?

Mitigating Health Care Costs – Steps

The following are some of the steps that many experts feel will help seniors and really anyone improve their overall health as well as maintaining a healthy lifestyle during your senior retirement years. If you are worried about having sufficient money set aside for your health care costs in your senior years, these are some of the steps you can take to improve your overall health and reduce the amount of health care that will be needed.  Here they are in no particular order:

• Maintain the proper weight for your frame and age.
• Always eat a healthy diet following the national food guide.
• Stop smoking
• If you drink do so in moderation
• If you are overweight now take steps to lose weight and get down to the proper level that you are supposed to be at for your age.
• Exercise on a daily basis, whether it is a walk around the block, the gym or swimming
• Taylor exercises to your capabilities and lifestyle.
• Maintain an excellent circle of friends that you see on a daily basis.
• Build and maintain a healthy social life
• Maintain contact with family and take the time to enjoy every day

While some of these may seem obvious, many of us do not stay focused on all of these issues and let exercise slip for example. In time, poor body fitness will catch up with us and we will pay the consequences with high health care costs. Take the steps now to make sure that this does not happen to you.

For more information on health care costs and issues, click here.

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I decided to write a blog about what we are going through as a family dealing with what we hope will eventually be a hip replacement for my wife. As I write this she is having severe pain in her hip and we are starting the process of having it assessed with the expectation that she will eventually need a hip replacement, but then we are getting ahead of ourselves. This situation first of course must be diagnosed and get into the health care system so that her hip can be assessed and then the proper corrective action taken. OHIP and Government Bureaucracy will ensure that this process is long. We hope the solution is a hip replacement and not something far worse.

We hope that our friends south of the border read this blog and can avoid the significant delays and extra pain that patients experience in Canada, particularly in the province of Ontario. Our health care is covered, so we cannot go broke, but we do have to wait a long time before solutions to our health issues are resolved. I am going to track the appointments and elapsed time so that readers can appreciate just how much time is involved in our situation. We are also going to attempt to be proactive and expedite appointments etc where and when we can. OHIP and Government Bureaucracy has its plus and negatives.

OHIP and Government Bureaucracy – Time Line

Save For more information about our health care system, click here.

In our last post about senior fitness training we wrote about a couple in their 80’s swimming a kilometer every day and how they got there.  In this post we wanted to write about senior fitness training in a more general sense. We wanted to give readers an idea about how they can increase their fitness level without even trying, regardless of what age you might be.

In the previous post we told a real true life story about a couple who were in their 80’s. They could not swim at all. They taught themselves to swim and now do a kilometer in the pool almost every day. Of course they swim slowly. But they do not stop until they have completed all of the lengths they need to do. We thought it was an amazing story and that is why we wrote a post about it on this diet website.

Not Everyone Can Swim as Part of their Senior Fitness Training Program

The truth is thought that not everyone has access to a pool. Not everyone has the guts to get into a pool when they are overweight. Some people will be deathly afraid of the water and will never go near a pool. The point of the story was not that you should be swimming all of the time, although it is a very good exercise to do, the point is to be active and do something that gets you moving and helps you to get into better shape. Continuous activity of any kind that raises the heart rate is an excellent way to improve your fitness level, particularly your cardio level.

If there is some activity that you enjoy that also has a fitness component, start slowly and gradually build up your fitness level and stamina. Almost anyone can do it, they just have to start slowly.  Go for a short walk and set yourself a goal to go just a bit further every day. Before you know it you will be walking faster and further that you thought you ever would. Even if it is just to the end of the driveway and back, or part way down the block, this increased level of activity will get you started towards being more fit.

Set up a Senior Fitness Training Program For Yourself

Many people are just plain intimidated by gym’s and all of these people who have spent their lives in a gym and look wonderful. Who wants to stand beside someone like that when you are overweight. No one does. That’s why we think that anyone who is worried about their weight needs to develop their own fitness program that they are comfortable with.

It does not have to be complicated. You do have to remain focused and keep at it. You need to move every day, whether it is walking, biking  or swimming and you need to watch your diet. If you are consuming a lot of calories everyday, make caloric reduction as part of your senior fitness training program as well.

It is so important to manage both of these issues in order to become more fit and to lose weight. Seniors have a much harder time losing weight since our systems tend to slow down. Exercise will help you achieve weight loss, better fitness and improved muscle tone.  Everything from balance to energy levels will improve. Within a month of walking every day or what ever exercise, you will begin to notice a difference.  Keep a diary to record what you do. It is an excellent way to track how much you are exercising, but it also will show you just how far you have come in the month in terms of improvement.

Get out there and get started today, even if it is just a short walk around the block! This could be the difference that extends your life by 10 years or more. For more information about health care, click here.

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