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The retirement years can be an exciting time to see the world, and travel is easier and safer than ever before for senior citizens. With a little planning and some caution, seniors can safely visit almost any destination. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urge older travelers to follow the simple tips below to ensure safe travel.

All travelers, including senior citizens, should see a doctor for a pre-travel visit, ideally 4–6 weeks before they travel, although even a last-minute visit can be helpful.

The doctor should be told about illnesses the traveler has and medicines he or she is taking, since this will influence medical decisions. In addition to providing vaccines, medicine, and advice for keeping healthy, a doctor can conduct a physical exam to assess a senior’s fitness for travel.

Seniors should consider their physical limitations when planning a trip. Seniors with heart disease, for example, might choose an itinerary that does not involve strenuous activities. Seniors may also have a hard time recovering from jet lag and motion sickness, so they should take these factors into account when planning a trip.

Before travel, seniors should have information about their destination that could affect their health, such as the altitude and climate. They should be aware of whether the destination is prone to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, since seniors may have more problems in those extreme situations.

Vaccines

Before travel, seniors should be up-to-date on routine vaccines, such as measles/mumps/rubella and seasonal flu. Some of these may be considered “childhood” vaccines, but their protective effect decreases over time, and the diseases they protect against are often more common in other countries than in the United States. More than half of tetanus cases are in people over 65, so seniors should consider getting a tetanus booster before they travel.

Seniors should also receive other vaccines recommended for the countries they are visiting. These may include vaccines for hepatitis, typhoid, polio, or yellow fever. Recommended vaccines are listed by country on CDC’s destination pages.

Use of some vaccines may be restricted on the basis of age or chronic illnesses. Yellow fever vaccine, for example, should be given cautiously to people older than 60 years, and it should not be given at all to people with certain immune-suppressing conditions. Seniors should discuss their detailed travel plans with their doctors and, if necessary, alternatives to vaccination.

Medication

A doctor may prescribe medicine for malaria, altitude illness, or travelers’ diarrhea; seniors should make sure the doctor knows any other medications they take, to watch out for possible drug interactions. Travelers’ diarrhea is common and may be more serious in seniors, so seniors should also follow food and water precautions.

In addition to medicine prescribed specifically for travel, seniors are likely to take other medicines regularly, such as medicines for high blood pressure, diabetes, or arthritis. They should plan to pack enough medicine for the duration of the trip, plus a few days’ extra in case of travel delays. Counterfeit drugs may be common overseas, so seniors should take only medicine they bring from the United States.

Prescription medicine should always be carried in its original container, along with a copy of the prescription, and all medicine should be packed in carry-on luggage, in case checked luggage gets lost.

Injury Prevention

Although exotic infections make the headlines, injury is the most common cause of preventable death among travelers. Seniors can minimize their risk of serious injury by following these guidelines:

• Always wear a seatbelt.
• Don’t ride in cars after dark in developing countries.
• Avoid small, local planes.
• Don’t travel at night in questionable areas.

In addition, seniors should consider purchasing supplemental travel health insurance in case of injury or illness overseas. Many health plans, including Medicare, will not pay for services received outside the United States. Seniors who are planning travel to remote areas should consider purchasing evacuation insurance, which will pay for emergency transportation to a qualified hospital.

Written by Mike Tennant

Summer can be a physically taxing time for everyone. The weather gets hot, places get crowded and busy, and we tend to race from one place to the next. Everyone needs to relax and enjoy summer, especially seniors. As we age, we become more sensitive to changes in temperature, especially heat. This article will look at some summer health tips for seniors that should be taken into consideration as the weather warms up.

The first thing that seniors should do for the summer is to examine their homes. Look at ways to save energy and stay cool. Many seniors cannot afford air-conditioning, which can be vital for good summer health. Look at ways to conserve cool air, like covering windows with heavier curtains, or ensuring that windows can safely remain open to allow breezes to flow. Create a shaded place outdoors in the yard that is free of clutter and has a comfortable chair for reading or relaxing.

If you are planning a trip, meet with your doctor to discuss the vacation. This will allow the doctor to give any needed medical advice and refill any prescriptions that might expire while you are away. If you have any complicated medical conditions, you might have your doctor write out an outline of your medical history and course of treatment, along with a list of medications and dosage instructions. This will be very helpful and save a lot of time if you need to seek emergency treatment away from home.

Another summer health tip for seniors to keep in mind is their schedule. While you are out and about, make sure to keep comfortable. Don’t rush around. Instead take your time getting from one place to another, and rest often. Take breaks to drink water or enjoy some fresh fruit. Avoid caffeine and hot foods that could contribute to overheating. Plan your activities so they take place in the cooler times of the day, such as in the morning or early evening. Plan trips to places that are indoors and air conditioned. If you don’t have air conditioning at home, considering spending the hottest part of the day at the local library, or a community center where there is indoor air.

Soaring summer temperatures can make everyone more susceptible to heat stroke and exhaustion. Symptoms can include confusion, short rapid breathing, a fast pulse, excessive sweating or lack of sweat. Avoid extreme heat and direct sunlight. Seek comfortable places to relax, such us under an umbrella, on a patio, or anywhere air-conditioned. Drink plenty of water, and wear light loose-weight clothing in light colors. Pack sunscreen, glasses, and hats.

Remember these summer health tips for seniors to keep everyone in your family healthy. Check in on elderly relatives who may be home-bound to make sure that they are faring well during the summer. Most of all stay healthy and enjoy your summer.

Aromatherapy reduced agitation and increased constructive activity in people with severe dementia, according to a recent study.

“Aromatherapy as a Safe and Effective Treatment for the Management of Agitation in Severe Dementia: The Results of a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial With Melissa” was conducted by Clive Ballard, M.D., John O’Brien, Katharina Reichelt and Elaine Perry, Ph.D., of Wolfson Research Centre, Newcastle General Hospital, Institute for Ageing and Health, in the United Kingdom.

Seventy-two people from eight nursing homes participated in the study. Selected subjects had agitation that was deemed clinically significant because it occurred at least once a day and caused moderate to severe management problems for the staff.

According to the study’s authors, agitation was defined as “a cluster of symptoms including anxiety and irritability, motor restlessness, and abnormal vocalization.”

The nursing homes were randomly assigned to use either placebo or active treatment. The placebo was sunflower oil added to a base lotion; the active treatment was Melissa essential oil added to a base lotion. The lotions were kept in opaque containers that delivered metered doses of .16 to .17 grams of lotion at a time.

A care assistant applied the lotion to the subject’s face and arms twice a day, for a total of six doses per day, or 200 milligrams of oil.

Levels of agitation were measured on the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) every week for four weeks by raters blind to whether participants had received the active or placebo aromatherapy treatment.

“Aromatherapy with essential balm oil was well tolerated and resulted in a 35% improvement in agitation compared with an 11% improvement with placebo treatment, a highly significant difference,” state the study’s authors. “Restlessness and shouting were the domains with the greatest improvement.”

Among the people receiving the active aromatherapy treatment there was also a significant increase in the amount of time spent involved in constructive activities, and a significant decrease in the amount of time spent socially withdrawn.

“This improvement indicates a benefit in overall well-being, in addition to the reduction in agitation, and suggests that improvements were not a consequence of increased sedation, which would have reduced participation in activities,” state the study’s authors.

The results of this study, according to its authors, suggest the need for longer-term, multicenter trials exploring the role of aromatherapy in the treatment of agitation in people with severe dementia, as an adjunct and/or alternative to psychotropic medication.

By Laura Sanders, Science News

A year of moderate exercise doesn’t just bulk up muscles—it beefs up the brain, too, a new study finds. A memory center in the brain called the hippocampus shrinks a little bit each year with age, but older adults who walked routinely for a year actually gained hippocampus volume, researchers report in a study to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I think it’s a very exciting contribution to see that walking at a fairly vigorous rate will actually affect a key structure of the brain,” says neuroscientist Carl Cotman of the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study. “So for healthy elderly, it’s good news and would hopefully encourage people to figure that exercise is worth it.”

In the study, 60 adults aged 55 to 80 scaled up gradually until they walked for 40 minutes three times a week, enough to get their heart rates up. Sixty other participants did toning workouts that included weight training, yoga sessions and stretching for the same amount of time. After a year of toning, a part of these subjects’ brains called the anterior hippocampus lost a little over 1 percent of its volume. In contrast, a year of aerobic exercise led to about a 2 percent increase in anterior hippocampus volume.

Study participants who got their heart rates up performed slightly better on a memory test and had higher levels of a brain-aiding molecule called BDNF, the researchers found.

“You can think of this as not maintaining memory, but improving memory in this group—essentially turning back the clock and pushing these individuals back up their own personal trajectory by about two years,” says study coauthor Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Although it used to be thought that aging was a one-way street that was going the wrong direction, we know from our work and other work that that’s not the case.”

The place where the brain got bigger—the anterior hippocampus—is “an interesting place,” says Kramer, because that’s one of the few places where new nerve cells are born from adult stem cells throughout a person’s life. Researchers don’t yet know whether this cell replenishment is responsible for the volume increase, though.

Kramer and his colleagues are currently following the participants to see whether these brain benefits last, he says. Further studies are needed to figure out the duration and type of exercise that boosts brain power the most.

The new work underscores how a fit body includes a fit brain, Cotman says. “This whole idea that something as simple as exercise can actually benefit the brain and offset some of the changes that occur with normal aging is an emerging frontier—that’s what’s exciting about it.”

For the first time since 2001, the American Geriatrics Society and the British Geriatrics Society have updated their guidelines for preventing falls in older people. The update includes two notable changes: One recommends tai chi — the meditative, slow-motion Chinese exercise — as an effective way to prevent falls, while another suggests that doctors review medication use by all elderly patients, with an eye toward reducing use of those drugs that increase the risk of falling.

The earlier guidelines did not single out any particular exercise regimen and endorsed prescription reviews only for patients taking more than four medications.

Exercise is essential for any older person who can manage it, according to Dr. Mary Tinetti of the Yale University School of Medicine, a chairwoman of the panel that issued the new guidelines. Tai chi gets the nod because several trials have suggested that it seems to help reduce the risk of falling, she said, although it is possible that other forms of balance training work just as well.

Greg Fuller teaches tai chi at the Jewish Home in Los Angeles. “The basic underlying philosophy is that balance is everything,” he said. Most important for his students, whose average age is 90, tai chi involves small, slow, controlled motions.

“With beginners, we spend a lot of time working while seated, bringing attention to the proper alignment of the pelvis, chest and head,” said Mr. Fuller. Once that is accomplished, “finding strength and balance while standing is much easier.”

Even then, many students work standing just behind a chair. “The presence of the chair back within reach gives them a sense of security and confidence,” Mr. Fuller said. “They forget about the possibility of falling and concentrate on the movements.”

Confidence is important to fall prevention, according to Dr. Tinetti, who said that fear of falling can itself lead older people to cut back on activities they used to enjoy. The less they do, sadly, the less they eventually are able to do.

The geriatrics groups also have long recommended that the medication regimens of older patients be reviewed and, if possible, scaled back. Earlier guidelines called for reviewing medications only if a patient takes more than four. This time around, researchers say that all older patients ought to have their doctors review their prescriptions for any that might increase the risk of falling.

“The evidence is strongest that medications that affect the brain — these include antidepressants, sleep medications and medications for anxiety — increase the risk of falling,” said Dr. Tinetti. “There is also a suggestion, not yet proven, that narcotics and some blood pressure medications may increase the risk of falls, as well.”

The updated guidelines distinguish between a fall that requires intervention and one that might be an isolated incident. The updated criteria for getting a risk evaluation are:

• An elderly person worried or frightened by a fall.
• Two or more falls in the past year.
• One or more falls with injury.
• Repeated difficulty with balance when walking.