Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving decorations are popping up everywhere, and with many fall activities taking place, it is a great way to get excited for fall by decorating your home! We here at Freedom Home Care Highland Park love to get ready for each season by decorating. Below are some tips and ideas we’d like to share with you. You can find affordable, and cute decorations at Homegoods and Target to add spice to small places in your home. Dollar stores and dollar sections in stores are jackpots when it comes to affordable holiday décor that you can reuse
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Archives for Fun
The Mental Health Benefits of Gardening
You may remember gardening with your loved ones as a child helping your mother or father in the backyard, or maybe it wasn’t a hobby until you grew up. No matter the age, there are many mental health benefits of gardening. Not only is gardening a fun, rewarding hobby, but it also can have many positive effects. At Freedom Home Care, we have put together a list of the benefits below. Number one, practicing acceptance. Majority of the suffering one goes through is from things that we cannot control. By being outside in nature, it helps you understand that
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Why You Should Attend the Next Backyard Bash
This past month, our team at Freedom Home Care celebrated the start of summer with the Backyard Bash at our Highland Park Senior Center. Were you not able to attend? Find out below what you missed! Sitting around with some warm weather, we shared Urban BBQ and listened to the award-winning multi-instrumentalist LJ Slavin. Slavin was very well versed in a wide range of styles like the flute, fiddle, mandolin, musical saw, and much more! With our view overlooking the beautiful Lake Michigan, it was the perfect spot to enjoy good music, good food, and even better company! Don’t
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Surround Yourself with People Who Make You Laugh
You know what they say- laughter is the best medicine, so why not surround yourself with people who make you laugh out loud for hours. Researchers have found that there are health benefits from laughter and they are even more effective in senior citizens. At Freedom Home Care we take pride in giving your loved ones the best care while stressing the importance of laughter. Not only will it brighten your loved one’s day, but it also can do way more health wise like the following below. Increased endorphin levels are a result from laughing. Because endorphins are
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Benefits of Music for the Elderly
We at Freedom Home Care, your home care agency, believe that music can work in many ways. One way found in a recent study shows that music is good for the health. The relationship between music and senior citizens can be beneficial for health and the quality of life. With the holidays and holiday music approaching right around the corner, we thought what better way to show you just how effective music can be. A study by the American music Therapy Association showed that music and activities done with music provides comfort and relief to people living with Alzheimer’s
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Can Engaging in Creative Activities Help You Avoid Alzheimer's Disease?
One in 44 million people in the U.S. today have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, while one in 10 adults over the age of 65 suffers from the disease. While there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s, there are ways we can help fight off some of its effects. According to experts, engaging in the arts and other creative activities, can help seniors positively develop self-esteem, sharpen skills, maintain dexterity and stimulate the mind. It’s also been proven that hobbies like playing games or listening to music can assist Alzheimer’s patients find meaning in their lives and draw from interests they’ve
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55 to 70 Year Old Women and Men With Prediabetes Get Stronger Bones With Football Training
Engaging in a friendly game of football at the age of 60 or 70 years old would be unthinkable to most. But when a group of seniors, ages 55 to 70, underwent 16 weeks of football training – combined with a healthy diet, they reportedly experienced a noticeable increase in heart and bone health. In a study conducted by researchers at the University of Denmark and the University of Faroe Islands, “untrained middle-aged and elderly people with prediabetes” showed results of increased protein hormone and bone serum levels by 23 percent in the femoral neck and 52 percent in the
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Easy to Grow Plants for Seniors
If there’s one activity that benefits us all as we age, it’s gardening. Since at least the early 1900’s, Americans have taken advantage of gardening and all that it has to offer. Not only does planting and growing your own garden increase mental health, it also provides a host of other benefits like building endurance, improving sleep cycles, increasing mobility and flexibility, decreasing stress levels and reducing anxiety and depression. Desite all of the favorable aspects of gardening, your loved one doesn’t have to have a green thumb to get started on their own garden. Growing your own flowers and
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Giving to Seniors During the Season of Giving
Make it a holly jolly Christmas for a senior who may not be feeling in the holiday spirit this year. Whether it is because of lost friendships, health decline, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, little family interaction or financial instability, there are a lot of older individuals who could use a little extra encouragement and gifts this winter. In fact, it’s not just help they could use at this one single season of the year, many seniors need assistance throughout the year. The National Council on Aging estimates that there are over 25 million Americans aged 60 years or older are economically
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Spending Time With Grandchildren Can Keep You Healthy
Not only is being a grandparent good for your health but spending time with the grandkids has been shown to offer numerous health benefits. According to research results published in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behavior, a study conducted in Germany and Switzerland says grandparenting actually helps people live longer than they would if they didn’t spend time with grandchildren. A group of 500 participants between the ages 70 and 103 were divided into three groups: grandparents with occasional grandparenting duties, those with no duties, and those who weren’t grandparents, but still performed those duties. Ten years later, half of
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