‘Age is Just a Number’ so Enjoy Life!
For this weeks Senior Living, we talk about how age, is just a number.
Have you ever heard of the term, ‘age ain’t nothing but a number?’ Well that’s what former nurse, now counselor; Pat Rondeau wants seniors to know.
Earlier this week Rondeau hosted a class for seniors at the Alpena Senior Citizens Center called ‘ ‘Age is Just a Number’ to help encourage seniors to stay active no matter their age.
Rondeau said seniors should still embrace life and stay away from isolation.
“Age is only a number, it’s how you look at life, and you keep moving, and you keep interacting with people and that’s why I think the Senior Center is so important. They have all these exercise classes, like Tai Chi and things that they can do. They keep these people alive, and we know that isolation is one of the biggest declines in anybody whether they are young or old. People need to interact with people,” she explained.
There are common myths about aging. Rondeau said those stories just aren’t true.
“Some misconceptions they have is that as we get older, we get confused, as we get older we don’t care what we look like, about getting shorter, people shrink and they do. As I explained it’s the vertebrae, that gets crushed down a little bit,” Rondeau said.
Rondeau warned seniors that there are many causes of confusion when getting older…But makes it clear those are issues not to worry too much about.
“There are so many things that can cause confusion. Dehydration, bad infections, UTI’s, elderly people can go into the hospital and have a UTI and they get treated and then they’re OK. Medication interaction, that’s one of my pet peeves,” she added.
On true fact about becoming older is brain shrinking.
“Our brain as we get older do shrink, and we know that, that is the normal part of aging. It does not mean that you’re getting any less sharp or you can’t figure things out. If you truly have dementia you’re making poor judgment. You might go outside with zero degree weather with no shoes on…little things that happen to us on a regular basis is not,” she finished.
