Elderly Health and Their Shoes

                       

Elderly Health and Their Shoes.

Aging is a natural process of life. All life on earth ages.

Each one of us will age in a similar fashion unless they are very ill.  A reminder that receiving Reiki sessions can help with any physical and emotional pain.  Thus, the client may have a better quality of life and passing.

With aging many of us will have issues with our balance and walking. When this occurs, it will be very easy to take a fall. At times, these falls may become deadly.

That is why it's important to continue to work on balance, strength, exercise (walk), stretch, and quality protein intake as we age. Quality 

Of the elderly I've been around, I noticed many of them do not take in the proper amount of protein in their diets. And if they do, many times it is low quality protein such as bacon. Bacon is low quality in my mind because it has: high saturated fat, little meat, and it is processed with Sodium Nitrates/Sodium Nitrites. (When I was in college, one of my professors in microbiology had said there is a link between eating a lot of Sodium Nitrate/Sodium Nitrite and Leukemia.)

Quality protein would include a variety of:

Meats: fish, beef, chicken, turkey, and pork (such as Pork Tenderloin). low-fat dairy (2% and 1% dairy. Skim or no fat dairy will raise your blood sugar instantly due to there is no fat to slow down the process. And so, when you have a insulin spike, you will also have a sharp blood sugar decrease causing you to be lethargic and hungry. In the long run, if this keeps occurring, diabetes may be the result. 

Dairy: Low-fat dairy (2% and 1% dairy.) 

Skim or no fat dairy will raise your blood sugar instantly due to there is no fat to slow down the process. And so, when you have a insulin spike from no-fat dairy, you will also have a sharp blood sugar decrease causing you to be lethargic and hungry sometimes within 30 minutes. 

Nuts, legumes, eggs, and seeds.

 

Ways to Work on Balance:

Ways to work on balance would be to use Yoga, Qi Gong, Walking outside, and Isometric exercises. Try a one-legged stand! Go slowly. 

Exercises:

Elderly like any other person on the planet need to exercise to stay fluid and strong.

When we are in our senior years, we tend to more easily over stretch and injure our ligaments and muscles. 

I know of an elderly lady who injured herself just by following a walking video on YouTube. I believe she already had a slight injury and she overstretched her leg. Thus, months later, she still is trying to heal the pain from the injured muscle/ligament and nerve entrapment.

When the elderly exercise, it's a MUST to stretch before exercising and after exercising. (This is true for anyone.)

The exercise would depend on the health of the elderly person, of course. 

Walking is always a great way to exercise. It's Low Impact (which means it's not hard on the joints) and it is extremely enjoyable, especially if the walking is outside. 

Walking outside asks the body, as you walk, to adjust to different depressions in the ground the senior walks over. Thus, it forces the body to balance each step you take.

If needed, the elderly senior can use walking poles to help with balance outside. (Note, use only poles that do not collapse. (One piece construction.) Also only use strong poles such as Fiberglass. My choice of pole is the Nordic Walking pole. One piece construction that is made with strong Fiberglass. 

https://skiwalking.com/

(Note, I have these poles myself. One day, my husband ran over one of my poles. I looked at it, and the pole is still in one piece and I have easily used it. Strong poles!)

 It's the last thing you want to happen is to have a pole that a elderly senior is using, to collapse whether due to poles that collapse into pieces for packing or from weak materials.

 

Qi Gong and Yoga are very enjoyable also. Qi Gong being a little easier to manage when you are an older senior.

Isometric exercises are also a nice form of exercising. A person just needs to be aware of the proper form of doing these exercises to stay injury free.

Weight training is a great way to keep muscles strong. But this doesn't mean for a senior to try to pick up a 50-pound weight for the first time and expect to be injury-free. Weight training is best when started off slowly. Try using 1-pound weights for the first couple of weeks and build up. Try using kitchen pieces to weight lift with. How about starting an elderly senior off with a tenderizer hammer? They have a good handle to hold and they can be heavy. Think items with a good handle, but not too heavy.

So this brings me to the reason why I wanted to write this article. I am no means an expert in this area, but I have a little experience with elderly seniors.

I noticed with some elderly seniors; they have trouble walking. In fact, I watched an elderly man this past summer, who was used to walking miles, have a difficult time walking his miles. I watched his gait, realizing he was stumbling over his feet and the road. 

I realized his walking was clunky. Why? His shoes! He had on a newer pair of athletic shoes on meant for running/walking. The way he walked; it seemed like his shoes were too big. But no, they were not.

If we look at the athletic shoes out on the market now days (2023), we will notice that many of the shoes are really thick soled. The thick soles act for the elderly senior as cement bricks on their feet.

Soon after that, this elderly man started using a more stream-lined, more thin-soled athletic shoe. Immediately his gait was smoother and fluid without stumbling down a road. His balance was better!

Another area to watch for with the stumbling is wearing athletic shoes that tends to have sticky soles on carpet. The sticky soles tend to grab the carpet or any other flooring. Thus, the elderly senior will stumble due to not lifting up their feet as well as they used to. The stumble can turn into a bad fall.

Recently I was noticed an elderly woman stumbling and walking clunky. I suggested a more thin-soled athletic shoe. There was improvement in her walk just like the elderly gentleman earlier in this article.

The shoe I suggested to this elderly lady was the Nike Cortez Textile shoe. The shoe is more streamlined and the sole is not so huge, clunky, and heavy. 

Here is what I'm talking about in a more stream-lined shoe and sole. 

https://www.nike.com/t/cortez-textile-shoes-cTpskF/DZ2795-100?nikemt=true&cp=31765401338_search_--x-20455850764---c-1014722680-00197593627490&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwO20BhCJARIsAAnTIVRzOUD89TB63ha4PL_z1G3jgUuaNnl3POPEn3P_20nBA3pngGwXrugaAqTNEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Elderly need to have light weight, well-made, stream-lined shoes with non-sticky soles.

The athletic shoes of today, at least most of them, are way too clunky and heavy for elderly seniors to walk with ease. Maybe the athletic shoe companies need to re-create more stream-lined athletic shoes with a thinner sole!

I know of two athletic shoe companies that makes a Zero mm drop athletic shoe with around 30 mm of plush (stack) under foot. These types of shoes may work for the elderly senior. The lower amount of sole creates a more grounded feel for the person wearing them. If the person feels more grounded, this means they may have less stumbles and falls. Which means less injuries or deaths from falling.

These two companies also make a higher drop as well.

 Some elderly seniors maybe so used to wear an 8-10 mm drop in typical athletic shoes, that they may feel more secure wearing those. These companies besides having zero-drop, they make an athletic shoe with a 5 mm drop. This 5 mm drop is still healthy and grounded feeling and maybe better for the elderly senior that is used to a higher drop of 8-10 mm. In athletic shoes today, many have more than 30 mm stack (plush). Thus, the shoe becomes heavy and too clunky for many elderly. 

Two companies that I have bought from myself are:

Altra Running   

https://www.altrarunning.com/?utm_content=ecomm&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwO20BhCJARIsAAnTIVSa8DtsmIgZJIwAWjDK_C9N-_i0Qj0izFJlRAhhyRMjUmBGE_8vQCQaAu48EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Topo Athletic

https://www.topoathletic.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwO20BhCJARIsAAnTIVTYNSkLCey3nhVY1R-hoaFrn69tRyhO5PF3ttA9B3tlA9Gq9G8VcB4aAjN3EALw_wcB

 

Living as an elderly senior can be a challenge. But simple changes in our lives can make a big difference! Here it could mean life or death.

By Cynthia Bergsbaken

 

Disclaimer by Reiki in the Prairie LLC and Cynthia Bergsbaken copyright 2015

I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or medical doctor.  These articles I have written, are from reading and experiencing them.  Many of these articles are my own experiences with my own inventions to heal as well.

If you have a medical condition-physically/mentally/emotionally, please see a qualified medical doctor.  Do not substitute my articles for proper medical care.  You are too important to the world.

I have used all procedures I have written about and have found them to be helpful as tools to help myself become a better person.   I am sharing them with you because used as a tool, they are helpful in Shadow working on ourselves.  (Shadow working is healing our inner shadows that are unconscious or subconscious.  Inner shadows are our belief systems, our thoughts, our behaviors, our life experiences.)

I created this blog for my Reiki clients originally.  Combining these tools with Reiki creates a happy, healthy person.  These tools, when used alone are also beneficial!

 

 

***All original content is copyrighted by Cynthia Bergsbaken, Perceptive Blogger & Reiki in the Prairie LLC.

Reiki in the Prairie LLC is a legal Entity under law, 2015.

April 11, 2020

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