Health and wellness
Number of unique resources found: 93
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As You Age: A Guide to Aging, Medicines, and Alcohol
Description: This site from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is focused on warning older adults about the dangers of misusing medications or mixing them with alcohol.
Description: To counter the abuse/misuse of opiates among older Ameircans, SAMHSA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are sponsoring new advertisements to encourage them to "Do The Right Dose" when using prescription pain relievers. The campaign strives to educate older adults that prescription pain medications are safe and effective when used correctly, but if misused, could lead to addiction or other problems.
Description: This site provides access to AARP's database on Internet resources below, and link to more than 900 of the best sites for people age 50+.
Older Adult Web Resources and Publications
Description: This site from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) contains links to pulications on mental health and substance abuse among older adults.
TCGEC Distance Learning Resources
Description: The Texas Consortium Geriatrics Education Center (TCGEC)
The TCGEC Distance Learning Initiative offers distant learners the opportunity to engage in online education that meets their learning needs and is taken at their convenience.
– General Information –
A Guide to Taking Care of Yourself
Description: Studies show that counseling and support groups in combination with respite and other services help caregivers remain in their caregiving role longer, with less stress and greater satisfaction. This fact sheet provides suggestions on how to care for yourself while caring for a loved one.
Description: A fact sheet with a variety of choices for example: paid employment or educational opportunities that the elderly can do to maintain an active lifestyle that unlocks the doors to many opportunities and health benefits.
Aging Increases Risk for Problems With Medicines 
Author: Taliaferro, Paula (2 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This is a fact sheet on how when you become older there are more risks involved in taking most medication.
Author: Dobb, Lynn (2 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on the vocabulary of aging. It provides a detailed glossary of aging terminology.
AGING PARENTS: HELPING WHEN HEALTH FAILS
Description: Gives adult sons and daughters general guidelines to consider if they face the dilemma about what to do about aged relatives.
Author: Bosch, Kathy (2 more by this author)
Description: Explains the sexual stages and phases that an aging man and woman may go through as older adults.
Description: An aging program designed to help people age with gusto by teaching them how to achieve optimum financial, physical and mental wellbeing in their later years. They also learn how to prepare for and cope with problems related to finances, legal issues, health, caregiving, housing, and selfcare.
Description: This site provides tips on how to and why one should maintain physical activity.
Description: Food borne illness is caused by eating food that contains harmful bacteria, toxins, or chemical contaminants. Eating even a small portion of an unsafe food can make you sick. Older adults are at a high risk for food borne illness because of a natural decline in the body's ability to fight off infections. Also, the keenness of vision, taste and smell decreases, making it difficult to recognize spoiled food. This site provides tips on how to avoid these problems.
Alzheimer's Disease: Unraveling the Mystery
Description: The National Institute on Aging today released a new edition of Alzheimer's Disease: Unraveling the Mystery, an illustrated, 80-page book written for people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), their families, health care Professionals, students, and others with an interest in the disease.
Description: Benefits QuickLINK is an AARP Foundation website to help people locate public benefits in all 50 states. Benefits QuickLINK delivers program descriptions, applications and websites, and local agency information for programs that family members may be eligible to receive.
Author: Day, Sharon
Description: Bone Builders is a community-based osteoporosis prevention education program for women and older men in Arizona. This website provides information on preventative measures such as diet, exercise, medications, and share information on osteoporosis.
Description: Explains the many risk factors of Osteoporosis and ways to increase Calcium in the body to prevent this disease as well as other dietary factors to help prevent Osteoporosis.
Caregiving and Sibling Relationships: Challenges and Opportunities
Description: Provides suggestions on how siblings can cope with the challenges of maintaining their relationships while dealing with the stress and challenge of caring for their parents.
Caring for Adults with Cognitive and Memory Impairments
Description: Provides suggestions and tips for caregivers caring for people with cognitive and memory impairments.
Center on Aging Studies Without Walls
Description: This website focuses on helping the elderly learn about elder mistreatment, family issues and relationships, mental health and aging, personal care and much more.
Centros de Recursos para Cuidadores de California
Description: This website provides links to a number of fact sheets in Spanish dealing with caregiving, stroke, depression, Alzheimer's disease, family care options, and legal issues.
Critical Conversations About Financing Long Term Care
Description: A curriculum developed to increase the awareness of the need to plan for changing health and independence as a later life event impacting financial security, to help consumers identify and communicate strategies to manage the risk of long term care and to change behaviors and practices regarding long term risk management.
Dehydration in the Winter: Elderly At Risk
Description: Focuses on why the elderly are most vulnerable to dehydration and some of the common symptoms to look for.
Author: Crawley, Connie (2 more by this author)
Description: These newsletter provide consumers with information on a wide variety of topics related to diabetes care.
Author: Crawley, Connie (2 more by this author)
Description: This two page fact sheet defines Type 1, Type II and gestational diabetes. It also describes potential health complications of uncontrolled diabetes.
Does Getting Older Mean Alzheimer's Disease?
Description: A news article to help family members recognize early warning signs of Alzheimer's.
Elements of Universal Design Home Modification
Author: Price, Christine (10 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on universal design of home and products. It provides information, ideas, or tips on how to make it so all people can use the same products.
Family Health and Safety Organizer
Author: Kurzynske, Janet; Linda Patterson, RN, MSN, Mississippi State University Extension Service; Vivian Bibbs, MPH, Kentucky State University; Ashurst, Kerri
Description: This resource is to assess the level of health risks some families have inherited and have due to lifestyle choices. This puts order to information about major illnesses and other health problems and strategies to improve health status and outcomes.
From Senior Moments to Wisdom Moments
Description: Focuses on the popular usage of the term Senior Moments and how the new term, Wisdom Moments should be used because not all seniors are forgetful. The phrase Wisdom Moments allows us to affirm life and human potential rather than limitation.
Author: Kerrigan, Jack
Description: This is a fact sheet about gardening for older adults. It provides information, ideas, or tips on the positive effects of gardening for seniors.
Give Your Heart A Healthy Beat
Description: This program provides you with research-based information that can be used to help you make healthful changes in your eating and exercise habits and is designed to help prevent cardiovascular disease.
GROWING OLDER: THE OLD-OLD YEARS
Description: A true or false questionnaire in reference to the fast growing segment of our population – the older adults, so that we understand the growth, development, and changes that occur in the later years of life.
GROWING OLDER:THE YOUNG-OLD YEARS
Description: A study program to explore some of the normal changes that occur in young-old years and the implications of these changes.
Guidelines for using medications safely
Author: Nolan, Jill (6 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This is a fact sheet on how when you are both honest and follow directions medicine can become most effective.
Author: Nolan, Jill (6 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: A very informative fact sheet on how to approach a visit to the doctor. Discussing what factors contribute to poor communication between patient and doctor, how you should prepare for a visit to the doctor, etc.
Home Alone: How Older Adults Can Feel Safe
Description: Informs older adults that as they enter the later years of their life, they need to keep themselves as healthy and fit as possible, anticipate the declines that come along with normal aging as well as the possibility of unexpected illness or disability, and acting in a smart manner to keep from becoming a crime victim.
Hypothermia: A Cold Weather Hazard for Seniors
Description: Almost everyone knows about winter dangers such as broken bones from falls on the ice. But cold weather also can cause an important, less obvious danger that affects many older Americans. Older adults are especially vulnerable to hypothermia, which can be deadly if not treated quickly. This drop in body temperature often is caused by staying in a cold place for too long. Every year, hypothermia kills about 600 Americans, half of whom are 65 and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hypothermia occurs when a person's body temperature drops below normal and stays low for a prolonged period of time. With advancing age, the body's ability to endure long periods of exposure to cold is lowered.
Improve balance: Prevent falls
Author: Gibson, Lisa (6 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on how to prevent falls do to aging. It provides information, ideas, or tips on the factors contributing to bad balance and how to approach the development of better balance.
Description: This fact sheet provides information on diets and exercise for the elderly.
Maintaining Nutrition as We Age
Author: Walsh, Kelly; Alma M. Saddam
Description: This is a fact sheet on maintaining a healthy living style while aging occurs. It provides information, ideas, or tips on how to exercise and eat right through the latter parts of your life.
Author: Goard, Linnette (5 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on the human process. It provides information, ideas, or tips on respiration, digestion, elimination, kidney and bladder capacities, and other ways to keep the body working properly.
Making A Change: Keys to Success
Author: Marsden, Anne-Michelle (12 more by this author); Sylvia Ridlen, Ph.D.
Description: This may your first attempt at a certain change, or you may be trying again after a change did not last. In either case, you would like to succeed this time. Think about these five activities that will help you make a change.
Making Your Kitchen “User Friendly”
Author: Price, Christine (10 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on safety of your kitchen. It provides information, ideas, or tips on making your kitchen friendly for people of all ages emphasizing safety.
Medication Misuse Among Older Adults
Author: Taliaferro, Paula (2 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This fact sheet provides information on the use of over and/or under medication for older adults. This resource also has a troubleshooting table for medication problems that may arise.
Medication misuse among older adults
Author: Taliaferro, Paula (2 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This is a fact sheet with a list of how misuse could occur.
Author: Bosch, Kathy (2 more by this author)
Description: Information about facts on mental health and aging, warning signs, and contact information for different mental health services.
Description: Focuses on the how the sense of smell and taste start to diminish or dull around the age of sixty.
Description: Publication for the elderly on the importance of the process of aging and how aging affects nutritional needs.
Description: This website provides information and resources for nutrition education programs.
Description: Focuses on the disease Sacopenia and what it has to do with aging.
Description: This fact sheet provides information on diets and exercise for the elderly.
Description: A project created to help prevent malnutrition in North Carolina's older adults with limited income.
Physical Activity and Older Adults
Description: Focuses on the importance of physical activity for the elderly and the positive effect it has on the body as well at what to consider when thinking about becoming more physically active.
Description: For the growing number of aging Americans, the body’s cooling mechanisms may become impaired. Living alone or being confined to a bed and unable to care for one’s self further increases risk. This website provides important information for older adults and family caregivers about dealing with warm weather.
Author: Gibson, Lisa (6 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on the predictors of healthy aging. It provides information, ideas, or tips on 5 personal characteristics of human development: physical, intellectual, emotional, relational, and spiritual.
Prescriptions and Over-the-Counter Medication
Author: Nolan, Jill (6 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This is a fact sheet comparing prescription and over the counter drugs.
Sages of the Ages: Stories that Touch and Teach
Description: This website links to a series of stories aimed at building resilience capacity through intergenerational storytelling.
Strategies for Successful Health
Author: Holmes, Patricia (4 more by this author)
Description: This fact sheet provides information on maintaining good health and nutrition as people get older.
Stretching and flexibility as we age
Author: Gibson, Lisa (6 more by this author)
Description: This is a fact sheet on how to keep your body fit at an older age. It provides information, ideas, or tips on stretching techniques and the ideal flexibility.
Description: Focuses on the psychological and social issues of aging well, as well as briefly covering exercise and nutrition for the elderly.
Systems to Keep Track of Taking Medications
Author: Nolan, Jill (6 more by this author); Christine A. Price
Description: This is a fact sheet on the systems used to keep track of taken medications.
Author: Goard, Linnette (5 more by this author)
Description: A webpage through the Ohio State University Extension that works on targeting a healthier diet through four main factors: drug intake, stress level, practicing good safety, and the amount of physical activity you partake in.
The Coming Agequake: Boom Or Bust?
Description: Explains the effects that the growing aged community may have on the nation and the world that may range from a triumph of human civilization to a formula for financial bankruptcy.
Description: Discusses the many innovations created to assist older adults such as telemedicine, different sensors and control devices or even robotics.
Description: A fact sheet that shows how walking, targeting your heart, Warming up, and memorizing the five points of correct walking can lead to great fitness after fifty.
– Professional Development –
Description: National Council on Aging (NCOA) is a charitable organization with a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and leaders. Members include senior centers, area agencies on aging, adult day service centers, faith-based service organizations, senior housing facilities, employment services, consumer groups, and leaders from academia, business, and labor. Programs help older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, increase access to benefits programs, and discover meaningful ways to continue contributing to society. Includes links to professional development and ways to become involved in the Aging Advocacy Network.
– Programming Resource –
2006-2007 Cooperative Extension System Publication on Aging Issues
Description: This publication provides resources and contacts on aging issues, organized by state. It includes the name and contact information for each of the partner institutions, as well as more detailed contact information for the heads of the aging education programs. Where the states have specific extension or other programs related to aging issues, more information describing the program is included.
Author: Brown, Joyce
Description: This fact sheet discusses the importance of pets (especially to older adults) and how animals add many things to our lives such as joy, companionship, and friendship.
Description: This is a series of lessons that can be used as stand alone or together as a series. The purpose of the lessons is to actively engage older adults and teach younger adults and youths about beliefs, knowledge, and practices related to aging and health.
Description: A fact sheet with a variety of choices for example: paid employment or educational opportunities that the elderly can do to maintain an active lifestyle that unlocks the doors to many opportunities and health benefits.
Description: An aging program designed to help people age with gusto by teaching them how to achieve optimum financial, physical and mental wellbeing in their later years. They also learn how to prepare for and cope with problems related to finances, legal issues, health, caregiving, housing, and selfcare.
Description: Healthy adults of all ages need at least 8 cups of water every day. However, older adults are prone to drinking less fluids, and therefore, more likely to become dehydrated. In fact, one of the most frequent causes of hospitalization for people over age 65 is dehydration. This site stresses the importance of staying hydrated.
Description: This curriculum addresses issues of interest to Baby Boomers such as money, health, and many other issues. Born between 1946 and 1964, many Boomers are now reaching their 50s, and are preparing for the "second" stage of their lives. Includes a step-by-step guide for the presenter, plus master copies for more than 50 overheads and more than 50 handouts.
Description: This guidebook is for caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease.
Center on Aging Studies Without Walls
Description: This website focuses on helping the elderly learn about elder mistreatment, family issues and relationships, mental health and aging, personal care and much more.
Critical Conversations About Financing Long Term Care
Description: A curriculum developed to increase the awareness of the need to plan for changing health and independence as a later life event impacting financial security, to help consumers identify and communicate strategies to manage the risk of long term care and to change behaviors and practices regarding long term risk management.
Exercise & Physical Activity: Your Everyday Guide from the National Institute on Aging
Description: This Guide from the National Institute on Aging is the centerpiece of Go4Life, NIA’s national campaign to help older adults fit exercise and physical activity into their daily lives. Available in Spanish and audio mp3 files.
Family Health and Safety Organizer
Author: Kurzynske, Janet; Linda Patterson, RN, MSN, Mississippi State University Extension Service; Vivian Bibbs, MPH, Kentucky State University; Ashurst, Kerri
Description: This resource is to assess the level of health risks some families have inherited and have due to lifestyle choices. This puts order to information about major illnesses and other health problems and strategies to improve health status and outcomes.
Author: Robertson, Anne
Description: This site links to a wide array of fact sheets on issues facing parents and families, from aging to child care.
Author: Kerrigan, Jack
Description: This is a fact sheet about gardening for older adults. It provides information, ideas, or tips on the positive effects of gardening for seniors.
Give Your Heart A Healthy Beat
Description: This program provides you with research-based information that can be used to help you make healthful changes in your eating and exercise habits and is designed to help prevent cardiovascular disease.
Growing Smarter, Living Healthier: A Guide to Smart Growth and Active Aging
Description: This guidebook is intended for older adults who are interested in how our communities work and how we might help them become more ‘age-friendly.’
How Can I Help An Older Person
Author: Bosch, Kathy (2 more by this author)
Description: An article especially for caretakers who work with the elderly. The article focuses on how to talk to an older person with a mental illness and how to refer them for help as well as references for where to go.
Author: Bosch, Kathy (2 more by this author)
Description: Information about facts on mental health and aging, warning signs, and contact information for different mental health services.
Description: This publication is the product of presentations and discussions from a symposium of professionals- both researchers and service providers- which highlights some of the best evidence-based programs in physical activity now available and provides a forum to explore challenges and successful strategies associated with creating flourishing programs in communities across the country.
Author: Kerr, Mary
Description: This fact sheet provides an overview of music therapy, the systematic application of music to aid in the treatment of physiological and psychological aspects on an illness or disability, and discusses the benefits of music especially to older adults.
Description: National Council on Aging (NCOA) is a charitable organization with a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and leaders. Members include senior centers, area agencies on aging, adult day service centers, faith-based service organizations, senior housing facilities, employment services, consumer groups, and leaders from academia, business, and labor. Programs help older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, increase access to benefits programs, and discover meaningful ways to continue contributing to society. Includes links to professional development and ways to become involved in the Aging Advocacy Network.
Nutraceuticals, Phytochemicals, and Antioxidants-What Are They All About?
Author: Oliveri, Cindy
Description: This fact sheet provides definitions for nutraceuticals, phytochemicals,and
antioxidants and describes ways to include these important nutrients in a healthy diet.
Description: This website provides information and resources for nutrition education programs.
Author: Van Dyke, Shirley
Description: This fact sheet describes the positive aspects of growing older, such as being wiser and having the opportunity to become grandparents.
Reduce Accidental Falls In Your Home
Description: A guide for the elderly on safety tips and ways to avoid different hazards to make their home a safer and more comfortable place to live.
Sages of the Ages: Stories that Touch and Teach
Description: This website links to a series of stories aimed at building resilience capacity through intergenerational storytelling.
Spanish Language National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Description: Accurate, up-to-date information on health issues affecting Hispanic seniors is now available online in Spanish from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The user-friendly website has information on a wide range of health topics, including diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes.
Description: This is an AARP study examining the health and welfare of America's 50+ population. The report shows an increased reliance on Social Security among other significant factors.
Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life
Description: The Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL) focuses on persistent pain due to both cancer and non-cancer related causes. TRIPLL is a collaboration between investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell-Ithaca, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
Volunteer Training Manual:Seniors CAN
Description: Community based program that takes place in senior centers or congregate sites for adults 55 and older. The program is designed to maintain mental health acuity, selfâ€efficacy and wellness to improve quality of life.
Webbing: An Emergent Curriculum Approach
Description: An interactive exercise designed to stimulate older adult involvement in activity planning.
– Research –
65+ in the United States: 2005
Description: This report provides a picture of the health and socioeconomic status of the aging population. It highlights striking shifts in aging on a population scale and also describes changes at the local and even family level, examining.
Description: An aging program designed to help people age with gusto by teaching them how to achieve optimum financial, physical and mental wellbeing in their later years. They also learn how to prepare for and cope with problems related to finances, legal issues, health, caregiving, housing, and selfcare.
Financial Vulnerability at Older Ages
Description: This report examines different types of negative events that strike at older ages. The study reports the prevalence of health problems among adults age 51 to 61 and those age 70 and older. It then computes the incidence of widowhood, divorce, job layoffs, disability, nursing home entry, and various medical conditions over time and examines their impact on wealth and income.
Give Your Heart A Healthy Beat
Description: This program provides you with research-based information that can be used to help you make healthful changes in your eating and exercise habits and is designed to help prevent cardiovascular disease.
Golden Years Are Active Years, Study Shows
Description: This is the results of a study on activities of people 55 years and older. The study found that almost 80% of those ages 55 and older spend time working, volunteering for an organization, taking care of family members, or helping people outside their own households.
Health and Aging Chartbook, Supplement to Health, US 1999
Description: This 166 page report describes the health of older Americans. The chartbook is divided into sections on population, health status, and health care access and utilization. The data presented are from nationally representative health surveys or vital statistics and cover the population 65 years and older. Age, racial and sex differences are emphasized.
Health Characteristics of Adults Aged 55 Years and Over: United States, 2004–2007
Description: This report highlights selected health characteristics of four age groups of older adults—55–64 years, 65–74 years, 75–84 years, and 85 years and over—using data from the 2004 through 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Data are presented for each of these age groups by sex, race and Hispanic origin, and by poverty, health insurance, and marital status.
Description: This publication is the product of presentations and discussions from a symposium of professionals- both researchers and service providers- which highlights some of the best evidence-based programs in physical activity now available and provides a forum to explore challenges and successful strategies associated with creating flourishing programs in communities across the country.
Nutraceuticals, Phytochemicals, and Antioxidants-What Are They All About?
Author: Oliveri, Cindy
Description: This fact sheet provides definitions for nutraceuticals, phytochemicals,and
antioxidants and describes ways to include these important nutrients in a healthy diet.
Nutrition Education Issues for Older Adults
Author: Johnson, Mary Ann; Jacquelyn W. McClelland; Dawn Penn; Sohyun Park
Description: this review summarizes dietary and nutritional recommendations, as well as the need for and value of nutrition education for older adults. Topics addressed include decreasing sodium; increasing the intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk products, vitamins B12 and D from fortified foods or dietary supplements; and understanding the importance of physical activity and weight management.
Description: This is an AARP study examining the health and welfare of America's 50+ population. The report shows an increased reliance on Social Security among other significant factors.