Oct. 4, 2022 — Paige E, a 76-year-old retired psychotherapist, had all the time loved yoga, which she discovered enjoyable, invigorating, and spiritually significant. As she grew older and confronted rising bodily challenges, she started taking yoga courses for seniors.

When the COVID-19 lockdown started, Paige was involved that she may want to surrender yoga courses. She knew she might follow on her personal however felt she wanted the construction of a category and the help of an teacher. So she determined to take on-line courses with Howard Katz, a Teaneck, NJ-based yoga teacher, with whom she had taken in-person courses previously.

At first, she was skeptical whether or not the net format could be helpful. 

“I’m not very tech-savvy — in fact, I’m a tech dinosaur — and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to manage the technology or relate to a virtual format,” she says. 

She was additionally involved as a result of she has some mind challenges and wasn’t positive how they might impression her capability to take part in on-line studying.

“I don’t have classic dementia or Alzheimer’s, but I do have memory and organizational issues that are related to other health problems,” she says.

Fortunately, she was in a position to grasp the expertise and profit from the courses.

Feasible and Safe

 Online yoga grew to become a part of the “new normal” through the COVID-19 pandemic, and its use has remained since then. And though some folks want in-person settings, many proceed to want the comfort, affordability, and different advantages of on-line yoga. 

This can be true  for courses focusing on seniors, together with these with cognitive impairments. A current examine discovered {that a} remotely supplied home-based chair yoga intervention was useful for older adults with dementia. 

“The telehealth-based chair yoga intervention was found to be convenient to both participants and their caregivers in keeping them physically active, as it was easily accessible from home and did not require transportation or getting dressed, which reduced caregiver burden and stress,” says senior researcher JuYoung Park, PhD, a professor in the Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Social Work and Criminal Justice. 

Seniors with dementia “can focus on the chair yoga intervention more effectively in a comfortable home environment rather than in a community center, with its associated distractions,” she explains.

Notably, there have been no accidents or different antagonistic occasions through the intervention, “indicating that online chair yoga with caregiver support is safe.”

Park stresses that some folks may face technological challenges in accessing on-line periods, so tech help needs to be supplied if essential. And “since the instructor cannot engage in direct action with the participant, it’s recommended that a caregiver attend sessions with the person with dementia, monitor the participant for safety, and assist in following the poses correctly.”

What Is Yoga for Seniors?

Katz teaches older adults in senior facilities and likewise provides on-line and in-person group and personal courses to seniors via his personal yoga studio. 

“Senior yoga is regular yoga made accessible for older adults who might experience age-related physical challenges,” says Katz.

“With seniors, I usually start with gentle warm-ups, then guide them through basic standing forward bends, gentle back bends, and warrior poses,” says Katz.

Props reminiscent of blocks, straps, and chairs are supplied, and postures are modified to accommodate the bodily challenges of seniors. 

“Some seniors can’t sit on the floor because they have difficulty getting up, so I modify the postures so that they can sit on a chair. Some have difficulty with balance, so they hold onto the chair or wall,” Katz notes. In truth, half the postures in his Yoga for Seniors courses are seated, whereas the opposite half are standing. 

Katz’s yoga courses emphasize respiration strategies. In explicit, he likes to show alternate nostril respiration (Nadi Shodhana), ocean-sounding breath (Ujjayi), and bee-breath (Brahmerie) that are calming for folks with nervousness and stress and produce other advantages as nicely — like reducing blood stress, for instance. 

All of Katz’s courses embody meditation, which, he says, can convey calm, peace, and non secular opening to folks of all ages and has additionally been proven to be useful in bettering cognition and high quality of life in seniors.

“I regard yoga postures and breathing as preparation for the most important component of yoga, which is meditation,” he explains.

Addressing the Special Needs of Seniors With Cognitive Challenges

Katz provides non-public in-person and on-line courses to folks with cognitive impairments.   

“Classes are highly individualized, and all the components are modified, depending on the student’s cognitive level and needs,” he says. 

For instance, he simplifies the respiration strategies or postures and explains every thing extra slowly, repeating directions and explanations as typically as essential.

Some people with delicate cognitive impairment can take courses alone. But these with extra extreme impairments or with dementia profit from having a caregiver current for security and to strengthen the yoga lesson, based on Katz. 

“It also creates a shared bond and activity for the caregiver and the student to do yoga together,” he says. 

Paige’s cognitive impairments are mild. She lives independently, does not require a caregiver, and successfully takes online classes with Katz, who “is patient and supportive when I don’t remember some things,” she says. “He explains things well, so I understand what each posture is designed to accomplish, and he creates a safe atmosphere, so I never feel rushed or judged.”

Paige feels that yoga has helped her bodily well being, cognition, and temper. 

“Yoga is a gift in my life, and I encourage other seniors to try it,” she says. 

The post Yoga Can Benefit Older Adults, Including Those With Memory Loss appeared first on Healthy and Slim Life.

More than 1 in 10 Americans take antidepressants to deal with melancholy. For probably the most half, these medicines get the job completed. Your well being care supplier could must tweak your dosage or swap you to a distinct form to seek out the perfect match, however most individuals discover an enchancment in 6 weeks or so.

Like each different medicine, antidepressants have unwanted effects that have an effect on some, however not all individuals. One of probably the most notable is weight acquire.

To be truthful, weight acquire or loss will be part of any temper dysfunction, whether or not you’re taking an antidepressant or not. Some individuals lose their urge for food and shed weight; others crave carbs, eat extra, train much less, and acquire weight.

So what are you able to anticipate and what are your choices?

Effects on Weight Can Vary

If melancholy dimmed your urge for food, weight acquire may very well be a very good factor.

“I’ve had some individuals feel so much better on medication that they are willing to work toward ways to lose weight and eat healthier since they are feeling better,” says Uma Naidoo, MD, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, skilled chef, dietary biologist, and creator of This Is Your Brain on Food. “If they had been losing weight due to a loss of appetite, it may be a relief to be eating better.”

If melancholy revved up your urge for food, the additional kilos could put your bodily well being in danger. But melancholy is a critical medical situation that wants remedy.

“Ultimately the goal of antidepressant treatment for most is to achieve remission of troubling depressive symptoms and recover to a life that feels more connected and hopeful,” says Kelly N. Gable, PharmD, BCPP, professor and director of Well-being and Resilience at SIUE School of Pharmacy and Psychiatric Pharmacist at Family Care Health Centers in St. Louis, MO. “If antidepressant treatment is part of that journey, we must always ensure that the side effects do not overshadow the benefits along the way.”

Does Weight Gain Happen With All Antidepressants?

No. And it doesn’t occur to everybody.

“In general, weight gain is a possible side effect of most antidepressants, such as Zoloft, Prozac or Celexa, but each person will react to antidepressants differently,” Naidoo says.

How a lot weight acquire is typical? 1 / 4 of those that take antidepressants acquire 10 kilos or extra, Naidoo estimates.

Is Weight Gain More Likely With Some Types of Antidepressants Than Others?

Yes. Antidepressants are grouped based mostly on how they work together with sure chemical receptors in your mind. The most frequently prescribed sorts are:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) embrace citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), paroxetine mesylate (Pexeva), and sertraline (Zoloft). They enhance the degrees of serotonin in your mind.
• Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) change the best way the neurotransmitters in your mind discuss to your mind cells. Examples embrace desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), duloxetine (Cymbalta), levomilnacipran (Fetzima), and venlafaxine (Effexor XR).
• Tricyclic antidepressants enhance the quantity of serotonin and norepinephrine in your mind and embrace desipramine (Norpramin), imipramine (Tofranil), and nortriptyline (Pamelor).
• Atypical antidepressants, comparable to bupropion (Wellbutrin) and mirtazapine (Remeron), don’t match into the teams above, however, just like the others, they alter your mind chemistry to deal with melancholy.

“SSRIs as a class are all fairly comparable with regard to weight gain risk, with paroxetine [Paxil] being the most likely in this group,” Gable says. “When comparing all antidepressants, bupropion [Wellbutrin] is the least likely to cause weight gain and, in most cases, will be weight neutral or cause weight loss over time. Alternatively, mirtazapine [Remeron] is most widely implicated in weight gain as a side effect.”

What Are the Potential Side Effects of Weight Gain From Antidepressants?

Five kilos or much less received’t have an enormous impact in your total well being. But 10 kilos or extra can change your ldl cholesterol and blood strain, and lift your threat for diabetes.

That stated, it’s necessary to maintain your targets in thoughts. Depression is a critical situation. It’s the main explanation for incapacity worldwide, affecting work, relationships, and even coronary heart well being, Gable notes.

“Any weight gain must be weighed against the negative possible outcomes of untreated depression,” Gable says.

If I Gain Weight, How Should I Manage It?

If you discover weight acquire, or any unwanted effects from antidepressants that concern you, discuss to your well being care supplier first. It might be the antidepressants, elevated urge for food as melancholy lifts, or one thing else.

“It’s important when taking any medication, and in particular antidepressants, to be closely followed by your mental health provider, as well as a primary care provider,” Naidoo says. “They will have the ability and knowledge to identify risk factors and screen for any conditions for which one may be at risk.”

If there are different drawbacks to your present medicine, you may be higher suited to a distinct antidepressant.

“For some individuals who experience significant weight gain, or find weight gain to be troublesome, switching antidepressants may be an option,” Gable says.

For occasion, she says that in the event you’re taking an SSRI, “switching to fluoxetine [Prozac] could be helpful. Considering a trial of bupropion [Wellbutrin] may also be an option. But this must always be balanced with the positive side effects that may have occurred with the antidepressant in question, as not all antidepressants will have the same positive impact on each individual person. If you find an antidepressant that works well for you, sticking with that treatment and trying some weight loss strategies may be the best path to take.”

Can I Prevent Weight Gain While on Antidepressants?

Yes, the identical manner you stop weight acquire typically: With wholesome meals, train, sleep, and stress administration.

“Optimizing your nutritional intake with plant-predominant whole foods that are nutrient-dense and rich in fiber and adding in a physical activity routine that brings joy can be very helpful in maintaining a healthy weight while taking an antidepressant,” Naidoo says.

Remember to rule out different elements, like thyroid hormone modifications, menstrual cycle modifications, digestive points, or consuming extra alcohol.

The post Weight Gain and Antidepressants (Including SSRIs) appeared first on Healthy and Slim Life.

April 27, 2022 – Every day, very important details about your well being is flushed down the bathroom – actually. Bowel actions comprise a veritable treasure trove of biomarkers that may uncover a wide selection of circumstances, from belongings you lack in your food plan to lethal ailments, together with COVID-19.

“Assessing fecal matter can help doctors detect certain types of cancers, give insight into the microbiome, and provide a deeper look into nutrition and lifestyle habits,” says Jessie Ge, MD, of the Department of Urology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

It will help docs customise remedies for irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel illness, she says. And tons extra.

“I don’t even know how many conditions can be examined,” Ge says, “because there are a lot.”

The downside is at present’s strategies for stool evaluation are costly, inconvenient, and type of gross. Many checks make you to poop in a tray, scoop out a pattern, and mail it to a lab. This creates an enormous barrier to be used, since a affected person should be very motivated to do it.

One answer, based on Ge and different scientists, is to create “smart toilets” that may seize lab-quality samples the place they’re first dropped off. That method, docs and their sufferers can acquire key insights with little to no motion required. In reality, a current paper Ge and others wrote within the journal Nature explains how good bathrooms is likely to be the subsequent software for monitoring COVID-19 and holding the virus in examine.

A Short History of Smart Toilets

One may argue that we’ve been souping up bathrooms nearly since we invented them. Sir John Harrington got here up with the trendy flush bathroom in 1596, and by the 1700s, Europeans have been enhancing them with bidets and different luxurious options.

Fast-forward a few centuries, and we’ve added much more. Today’s bathrooms is not going to solely wash, heat, and air-dry your tush; they’ll allow you to shine mild on the goal, play music, and add aromatherapy – all from the comfort of your cellular system.

But the good bathrooms Ge and her colleagues wrote of in Nature would go a step additional: inspecting your well being.

The late Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir, MD, PhD, was an early pioneer in good bathroom expertise, courting again to the Eighties. His objective was to focus well being care on early detection and prevention, often called precision well being. Today, a colleague of Gambhir’s, Seung-min Park, PhD, carries on the work. (Park was a co-author and lead knowledge scientist on Ge’s paper.)

Park designed the Kanaria, a sensible bathroom prototype that analyzes urine and stool. The Kanaria can assess quantity, frequency, coloration, and consistency; determine the presence of blood or mucus; and observe adjustments over time.

Other good bathrooms additionally use scanning expertise to look at stool for blood or different points. For instance, researchers at Duke University in 2021 unveiled its model, which analyzed stool for consistency and the presence of blood.

But Park’s new good bathroom idea goes even additional, he says, by utilizing an automatic fecal sampling and evaluation system that may determine particular ailments – together with, he says, COVID-19.

Smart Toilets and COVID-19

Scientists already examine wastewater for COVID-19. While this permits public well being officers to identify adjustments amongst communities, it doesn’t present insights for people.

Park’s new good bathroom idea, nicknamed the Coronavirus: Integrated Diagnostic (COV-ID) Toilet, would come with a mechanical arm that may gather and take a look at samples for the virus. A person would first consent to the take a look at by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. Results could be accessible in quarter-hour.

The massive concept isn’t to simply diagnose sufferers, however to “understand the virus in epidemiological studies,” Park says.

“Frequent and widespread testing of fecal matter for the presence of COVID-related RNA could help science better understand how the virus behaves,” he says.

For instance, taking a number of samples from one particular person would enable scientists to watch viral shedding because the illness progresses and ends. This would possibly supply clues into the mysteries of COVID, like why some individuals who have it don’t get signs and others, who’ve what’s often called lengthy COVID, take care of signs for weeks or months.

Are Smart Toilets Coming Soon to a Bathroom Near You?

The COVID-tracking bathroom Park and colleagues envision may very well be accessible throughout the subsequent 3 years, offered correct funding and FDA approval come by way of. (Neither is assured.) Meanwhile, some good bathroom prototypes exist already and must be accessible to the general public inside a 12 months or so, Park says.

These fashions gather normal info corresponding to sitting time, time to first bowel motion, defecation coloration, and Bristol scale knowledge (a measure of form and consistency). This can unveil bodily and conduct adjustments an individual could have to make to enhance their well being, corresponding to ingesting extra water or consuming extra fiber.

“In the future, [smart toilets will be able to assess] more health markers, like chemistry of the body, but we aren’t there yet,” Park says. He predicts that one thing like most cancers diagnostics, that are far more difficult, could also be attainable within the subsequent 5 years. And as a result of a lot in regards to the microbiome isn’t recognized, it might be 7 years or extra earlier than good bathrooms can supply insights that result in prognosis or remedy.

Other than funding and testing, the massive hurdle good bathrooms face is figuring out what safety and well being privateness guidelines should be in place to make use of them safely and successfully.

Many questions stay: What is probably the most safe approach to deal with and retailer the private knowledge captured? What occurs when a rest room identifies a delicate well being situation? How can or not it’s ensured that each one of it will adjust to theHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)?

“The goal is to help people,” Park says. “The benefits must outweigh any potential risks, like security or privacy. Which makes bioethics a top priority right now.”

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