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UNDERSTANDING YOUR MEDICAL CONDITION

One of the most important things you can do to support healthy aging and improve your ability to age at home is to properly understand your medical conditions.

Understanding starts with language. Doctors and other medical professionals have their own way of describing things and this often does not connect with patients. It’s essential you feel comfortable asking questions and understanding how potential changes in your condition may affect your overall health and wellness.

Here are some additional resources that may help with your understanding of these topics:

 

1. Understanding Your Medical Condition
  • Mayo Clinic – Use this link to better understand how our bodies change as we age and what ‘normal aging’ looks like.
  • Alliance for Aging Research – Use this link to access videos which offer education and condition-specific insights on conditions commonly affecting us as we age.
  • Harvard Medical School – Use this link for tips on working with your medical team to better understand your health status.
  • Institute for Healthcare Improvement – This link takes you to an article which contains a set of tips written for doctors to help them better explain medical information to their patients.

 

2. Understanding Your Physical Condition
  • Mayo Clinic – Use this link to help guide your analysis of your physical fitness based on heart rate, muscular strength and endurance.
  • Dalhousie Frailty Scale – Use this link to understand one way of measuring function and frailty – from Dalhousie University.
  • Summit Medical Group – This link outlines what you should consider, understand and prepare for if starting or maintaining a physical fitness program as you age.

 

3. Understanding Your Cognitive (or Mental) Condition
  • National Institute on Aging – This link will take you to a review of cognitive health and how it may change as you age. Plus, what you can do to support your cognitive health as you age.
  • National Institute on Aging – This link reviews what mild cognitive impairment is, its symptoms and how it is diagnosed.
  • Senior Helpers – Teepa Snow Senior Gems – An explanation of the stages of dementia, conditions which are present as dementia progresses and tactics to respond to them.