InHealth: Progressive Home Health Care

By Nicci Kobritz, R.N. | November 2021

How Can Home Care Support Greater Independence?

For individuals entering the time of life when long-term support becomes increasingly important, the goal is to facilitate greater independence by helping them take more control over underlying risk factors associated with increasing frailty and cognitive decline. 

Research from the Alzheimer’s Association and Johns Hopkins tell a compelling story about why this is so necessary.  Three out of four Americans after age 65 has multiple, activity-limiting chronic health conditions, and their overall risk rises with age. For example, Alzheimer’s disease affects one in nine people over 65. Of those, 72 percent are 75 or older. Frailty affects an estimated 12 percent of individuals over 65 and grows to 25 percent for people 84 and older.

Frailty and dementia are strongly related and share common risk factors such as age, chronic conditions, and lifestyle factors. Tackling frailty begins with assessing modifiable risk factors and then managing conditions that compromise brain integrity. These factors include hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic and nutritional deficiencies. 

If underlying conditions aren’t addressed, individuals remain at increased risk for hospitalizations, decreased functional status, lost independence, and living their remaining years in institutions. For many, this can be avoided by adopting the Progressive Model of in-home care. 

What’s the Advantage of the Progressive Model of Home Health Care?

Traditional models of care simply manage the progression of decline until people end up in a skilled nursing facility or memory unit. The Progressive Model aims much higher than that.

The Progressive Model, through its integrated wellness program, empowers clients to have greater positive influence over the aging process–regardless of age or limitations–by focusing  on modifiable risk factors and lifestyle behaviors. A personalized plan is based on medical screenings for sleep apnea, depression, memory, stress, vision, and hearing. In addition, a nutritional analysis can determine deficiencies that may include homocysteine levels, vitamin D, folate, B-12, and magnesium.

Providing the body with fuel it needs to support optimal health means eating nutrient-dense foods as a crucial component of both brain and physical health. Increasing consumption of foods rich in antioxidants–such as delicious, fresh fruits and vegetables–is a key component of a beneficial Mediterranean-style eating plan. These foods help reduce chronic, silent inflammation, which can lead to cognitive decline, cancer and heart disease.

Exercise is also crucial to retaining independence. Daily cardiovascular exercise along with balance and resistance training at least 20 minutes a day, three or four times a week, is recommended. Mental exercise is just as important, and mental stimulation programs can stabilize or improve short-term memory. Socialization also is very important.

The Progressive Model provides individuals the help they need to take positive steps with proactive caregivers who are supervised by specially trained nurses. As clients steadily move along the wellness continuum and experience improvements, their excitement helps sustain the beneficial changes they make. 

Youthful Aging Home Care
Nicci Kobritz, R.N., Nurse Practitioner
5602 Marquesas Circle, Suite 105, Sarasota, FL 34233
941.925.9532 | youthfulaginghomecare.com