Blood pressure is something that people should strive to control throughout their lives, but it’s particularly important for seniors and senior health. High blood pressure is a common problem, affecting  more than 50 percent of all Americans who are 60 years old or older.

What is High Blood Pressure?

When your heart beats and pumps blood throughout the body, a pressure is exerted against the walls of those arteries by the blood being pumped. That pressure is called blood pressure–and the higher your blood pressure, the greater your risk of developing a serious health condition. The medical term for high blood pressure is hypertension.  High blood pressure is a reading of 140/90 or higher. A good blood pressure reading is 120/80 or lower.

What Causes High Blood Pressure?

Years of living an unhealthy lifestyle can cause high blood pressure. Being overweight, having diabetes, smoking and eating a high-salt diet can all cause high blood pressure. Health conditions that can cause it include kidney disease, chronic pain, stress and Cushing’s syndrome.

What are the Symptoms?

High blood pressure very rarely causes symptoms. To know that you have it, you need to get your blood pressure checked and find out the reading.

Sometimes, severe high blood pressure can lead to fatigue, affected vision, abnormal heartbeat or pains in the chest.

What Does this Mean for Seniors?

Although high blood pressure is extremely common in seniors, it isn’t a natural part of normal, healthy aging. Seniors who don’t get high blood pressure under control run the risk of serious heart problems such as heart attack, congestive heart failure, arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and heart disease. Damage to the kidneys or kidney failure, blindness and stroke are also possible complications of high blood pressure.

Lifestyle Changes

Treating high blood pressure in seniors isn’t just about taking a medication–lifestyle changes are necessary to keep it under control. A regular exercise routine and a healthy diet–low in salt, fat and cholesterol and rich in whole grains, fruit and vegetables–are an essential part of high blood pressure treatment.

The second Wine Country Senior Games are scheduled May 31 through June 10. Senior athletes age 50 and over who may have missed a chance to compete in the inaugural event last year can get a new chance.

Sports for the 2012 Games will include archery, swimming, soccer, basketball, running, walking, tennis, bocce ball, golf, square dancing, table tennis, pickle ball and softball.

Venues, which will include Healdsburg and Windsor sites, are Lake Sonoma (archery), Santa Rosa JC (basketball and swimming), Juilliard Park (bocce ball), cycling (Healdsburg), golf (Windsor GC), Hiram Lewis Park in Windsor (pickle ball), Trione Fields in Santa Rosa (soccer), Magnolia Field in Rohnert Park (softball), Spring Lake Village in Santa Rosa (square dancing), Mountain Shadows Rec Center (table tennis), Cloverdale (5k and 10k run/walk).

The Games are open to anyone age 50 and over.  The Wine Country Games are patterned after the Huntsman World Senior Games inSt. George,Utah. The Wine Country Games attracted about 600 athletes last year, as well as 100 volunteers.

“The Games bring athletes together to share in and celebrate their individual successes whether a medal is won or not,” said Amy Crabb, COA

development manager for COA’s Services to Seniors. “Friendships that can last a lifetime are created and nurtured.”

The Wine Country Senior Games are striving to become a world-class, Olympic-format, international sporting event for senior athletes.

“The Games provide participants a total experience, not just another sporting event,” said McBride. “Those attending can enjoy Sonoma-focused festivals, celebrations, social events, health screenings, food and wine experiences as well as developing long-term relationships.”

For more information, go to www.winecountrygames.com  

 Omaha Business Hall of Fame

Committed to Quality Care
In an effort to monitor and improve the experience of all of the Home Instead Senior Care network’s clients, the network has commissioned J.D. Power and Associates, a globally-recognized independent market research firm, to conduct periodic surveys of all of its valued clients.

J.D. Power and Associates conduct surveys with clients (or their designated family members) to monitor our progress as we continuously strive to better serve you – and any future clients you might refer to Home Instead Senior Care.  These telephone surveys are conducted twice per year: once in January, and again in July.

The telephone surveys are brief (about 4 minutes) and may be completed during the weekdays, weeknights, or weekends – whichever is most convenient.  And if you would like to provide more detailed feedback, provide the telephone interviewer with your e-mail or mailing address and you will have the opportunity to complete a comprehensive survey via the mail or e-mail – at your convenience.

we encourage you to participate again – this helps us understand whether we’re still on track!

We truly appreciate your candid and honest feedback.  Please understand that these surveys are exclusively for research purposes only.  No one will try to sell you anything as a result of your participation in this research.

If you would like any additional information regarding J.D. Power and Assoc., please visit their website at jdpower.com.

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Morning Mojo: Challenge + Crisis + Pain = OPPORTUNITY

By Tom Tognoli | November 21st, 2011

Why does life throw challenges and crisis at us, like the crisis we have all been dealing with for the last year?

Because that is the only way we will change. It is the only way we will rid ourselves of evil, bad habits, greed, ego and the wrong priorities. It’s human nature wanting to stay the course, not to rock the boat, and usually the only way we will change is if we are forced into it by some outside influence, i.e. financial crisis, death, illness, catastrophe. We have to look at the challenges of the last few years as an opportunity and as a way to re-prioritize what is important.

What has happened with most people these last few years is they are focused; no they are consumed, by what has been taken away and not focused on being thankful for what they have and the opportunities of tomorrow. Step back for a moment – the reason things get taken away, the reason life throws us challenges and crisis is because it is the only way we will wake up and quit overlooking those things which are really most important in life – our F5 (Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness and Finance). Challenge and crisis gets thrown at us because it is the only thing that will slap us in the face hard enough to get our attention. Think back in your life to a time of crisis – yes you may have lost something or someone. There may have been a scare in your life of some kind, and with that crisis a door opened. A new person appeared when you looked in the mirror, usually a better person, a more thankful person, a more humble person, a more caring person, and a person with better priorities.

In every crisis and in every challenge there is an opportunity. We just have to find it. But, until we let go of the pain and anger of what we have lost, and focus on all that we have which is really most important, the agony will not stop. And, once we do focus on what we have, life will be even better than it was before. This week and beyond, make a commitment EVERYDAY to give thanks and be grateful for everything and everyone you have in your life. Quit being consumed by what you have lost, or the pain will not stop and you will not be able to move forward towards accomplishing greatness. If you can do this, not only will the pain stop, but life will be better and you will be more at peace than ever before.

Remember, life is about who we become and how we grow when faced with challenge, with crisis, and with pain. It is what life is all about. It is why we are here. So step back and look in the mirror, who are you becoming?

Let’s be thankful and be grateful for all we have in our lives. The rest is just “stuff.”

Morning Mojo: My life is in a rut!!!!

By Tom Tognoli | November 7th, 2011

“I’m stuck in a rut…I’m just not happy with where I am in my life.”

We can feel this way about our health, our relationships, and our job. We can feel like we are stuck in a rut, good or bad, about anything in life.

So, how do we get out of the bad ruts?

The bad news is it takes a lot of work to get out of them. The good news is when we are in good ruts it’s also hard to get out of them. I call them the ruts of life.

Look at all the equities of your life – your F5 (Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness and Finance). What kind of ruts are you stuck in – good or bad? Often our ruts can include being happy or sad, inspired or uninspired, purpose driven or purposeless, healthy or unhealthy, motivated or unmotivated, in good relationships or bad relationships. I think anyone who answers how are you with “I’m okay” or ”I’m fine” is in a bad rut and in denial. They just don’t know it and/or don’t want to admit it.

In life we can’t live between the ruts, it’s just too hard, it’s like trying to balance on a tight rope for our entire life – eventually we get tired and fall to one side. Unfortunately if we don’t make a conscious decision typically we’ll fall into a bad rut. So, we have to accept the fact we are going to get stuck in one of the two ruts – good or bad. In the book The Purpose Driven Life it says, “Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way they will define you.”

Let’s make the commitment today to scrape and claw our way out of the bad ruts. Once we’re out, just roll over and fall into the good rut. There will be short-term pain with getting out, but it will pass and then you will experience the long-term gain of living life in the good ruts.

Get stuck in the good ruts and make it a GREAT week!!!!

Morning Mojo: Success has to be an obsession

By Tom Tognoli | October 10th, 2011

How bad do you want it?

Success…how bad do you really want it?

So many of us say we want to be successful, but we really don’t want it bad enough and that is why we don’t have it. We only kind of want success. We don’t want it as bad as we want to be cool. We don’t want it as bad as we want sleep. We don’t want it as bad as we want to hang with our friends. We don’t want it as bad as we want to play grab ass. Heck, we don’t want it as bad as we want to watch TV.

And that is why we struggle. You have to want it so bad that you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Because until you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful and nothing else matters, success will elude you. It has to be an obsession.

Check out this video. Turn it up and listen to the words. Make sure you show this to your friends, your family, your kids and your grandkids. Help them to understand what it takes and the sacrifices required to be successful. Once you have helped them to understand, then you will understand.

We have to want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe!!!

Morning Mojo: Be 110% Committed

By Tom Tognoli | September 26th, 2011

If you have ever played a contact sport in your life like football or rugby, you know that a sure fired way to get hurt is by not playing full out. Not going 110%. Not being 110% engaged. In contact sports you are either doing the hitting or you’re getting hit. It is pretty much that simple.

It is really the same thing with most everything in life with the exception being that you can usually at least walk off the field in most other things in life, unlike in contact football or rugby where they cart you off on a stretcher. That is the good thing and the bad thing. The good thing is we can go through the motions giving it a half hearted effort and not really get hurt. Unfortunately we don’t really get anywhere because the pain of not being 110% committed and focused is most of the time not immediately felt. It builds up over time and we get mortally injured slowly and don’t even realize it is happening until it is too late.

Most people just want to dip their toes in the water with things in life when what we really need to do is dive in! You see it every day – people showing up but not going full out. It will be the difference between winning and losing. The good thing is most people go through life only playing half speed. So if you go 110% you will not only score, but you will CRUSH IT and win!!

Week three of the NFL season is in the books, so do like they do in the pro’s with everything you do in life…drop the hammer and go 110%.

Score!!!!

Monday Mojo: The Tiny Black Dot

By Tom Tognoli | May 23rd, 2011

If I were to make a little black dot on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of white paper and show the sheet to a group of people and ask them what they see, the majority will say that they see a black dot. The majority will say that they see a black dot. Very few, if any, will tell me that they see a white sheet of paper with a tiny black dot.

We tend to look at our lives in very much the same way. We have our health, enough food to eat, a job that pays the bills and allows us some leisure activities, but we don’t focus on that. We don’t appreciate that.

Instead, we concentrate on the tiny black dot – the 10% in our lives that we don’t like or the things we wish we could change. By concentrating on the 10% that represents our problems or things we don’t like, we develop a negative attitude and feel lousy. Plus, there’s a universal principle that comes into play: we attract what we think about most.

By focusing on what is lacking in our lives, we create more experiences of scarcity.

Think about your life. Are you paying too much attention to the 10% that isn’t what you want it to be as opposed to the 90% that’s going well? I’m not saying we should ignore our challenges or things we’d like to change. But if we paid a lot more attention to the 90% that IS working, we’d have a better attitude and we’d get better results.

When it comes to your job, do you concentrate on all the positive aspects of what you do, or do you gripe about how much money you make, your co-workers, or the fact that someone else got the recognition and rewards you wanted?

What about the basic necessities of life? Do you feel gratitude every day for the food you eat, the clothing you have, the roof above your head or do you take all of these things for granted? Worse yet, do you complain that you don’t have more?

And let’s not forget your body and your health. How much time do you spend thinking about what IS working? Your body is a miracle, make no mistake about that. There’s nothing “ho-hum” about your body and its day to day operation.

Albert Einstein once said that there are two ways to live your life – one way is as though nothing is a miracle – the other is as though everything is a miracle.

Most of us walk around with a ho-hum attitude about the miracle of our bodies. We treat this amazing creation as if it’s no big deal.

Consider this: your heart is only the size of a fist and yet it pumps blood through your body. Every day, the heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood and beats about 100,000 times. That’s just in one day.

In one year, that amounts to 36,500,000 beats. And in most cases, the heart just keeps on beating 36,500,000 times a year for many decades. Stop for a moment and recognize the enormity of this miracle.

And, of course, you don’t have to change any body parts or beat your chest manually to keep your heart going. It automatically beats and sends the blood through your body with no effort on your part.

Now, let’s consider your brain. The brain and spinal cord are made up of many cells, which include neurons. There are about 100 billion neurons in the brain. 100 billion! Neurons are nerve cells that transmit nerve signals to and from the brain at up to 200 miles per hour. Isn’t this amazing?

Of course, your ears … your eyes … well, I could go on all day about the miracle of your body and how we take it for granted. Just one final example to drive the point home: When you get a cold and have difficulty breathing for a few days, I bet you’ll often tell everyone that you are congested and don’t feel well. When the cold clears up in a week and your breathing returns to normal, you probably don’t say: “My breathing is perfect today! I’m able to get all the oxygen I need!” Why does it make sense to complain about your breathing for the one week it is impaired … while failing to acknowledge the other 51 weeks when your breathing is full and healthy?

Stop taking this incredible body for granted. Appreciate all the things that ARE working! You’re a walking miracle, and part of an extraordinary universe.

Some of you may feel that ignoring the black dot is not the answer – and that you need to focus on the black dot to improve certain conditions in your life. Well, if you choose this route, here are three strategies you could use:

1. Worry about the black dot.
2. Complain about the black dot.
3. Take some proactive steps to eliminate or reduce the black dot.

The only strategy that makes sense is #3. Yet many people select strategies #1 and #2, which only makes them more miserable.

Be brutally honest with yourself. Are there any areas of your life where you’re ignoring the large white sheet and seeing only the tiny black dot? Do you see the faults of those at work or at home, and seldom affirm people for their positive contributions to your life? If you’re like most of us, you have an abundance of blessings, yet you’re often blind to them.

If you’ve been staring at some tiny black dots recently, take responsibility for that. And recognize that nobody is forcing you to keep your eyes on the black dot. You’ve developed the habit of focusing on the negative and your life (and the lives of those around you) will be greatly enriched if you start to shift your vision toward the white sheet.

You have a choice. You can keep staring at the black dot and telling others about all the things that are wrong in your life, or you can begin to appreciate your many blessings. Sounds like a pretty easy choice to make, doesn’t it?

Pneumonia Quiz – Test your Knowledge
1. Pneumonia is not usually contagious. 
    True or False?

2. Walking pneumonia is generally deadly
     if not treated in a reasonable amount of
    time?
    True or False?

3. What is pneumonia?
    A) A lung infection.
    B) Loosening of the lungs.
    C) Advanced bronchitis.
    D) An unusual result of hepatitis

4. Which is NOT a general symptom of
     pneumonia?
A) Rash, peeling skin, chafing.
B) Sneezing, sore throat, cough.
C) High fever, shaking, chills.
D) Muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea.

5. Patients with pneumonia may
    sometimes develop purplish skin?
    True or False?

6. Pneumonia is one of the top 10 causes
    of death in the United States.
    True or False?

7. There is no vaccine against pneumonia.
    True or False.

8. Pneumonia can be caused by a regular
    influenza virus?
    True or False

9. Pneumonia can be serious, but it is
    rarely a life-threatening infection.
    True or False?
Answers
1. False: Pneumonia is extremely contagious and is caused by breathing in small droplets that get into the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Pneumonia can also result when bacteria or viruses from the mouth, throat, or nose inadvertently enter the lung(s).
2. False: Walking pneumonia is a nonmedical term to describe a mild case of pneumonia. People who have walking pneumonia are seldom confined to bed or need to be hospitalized.
3. A: Pneumonia is an infection of one or both lungs.
4. A: Most people who develop pneumonia initially have symptoms of a cold, which are then followed by a high fever (sometimes as high as 104 degrees), shaking, and chills.
5. True: At times, the skin and nail color of an individual with pneumonia may change and become dusky or purplish. This is a condition known as “cyanosis,” which occurs as a result of low levels of oxygen in the blood.
6. True: Pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
7. False: Two vaccines are available to prevent pneumococcal disease, which is one type of pneumonia. The vaccines are called Prevnar (pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) and Pneumovax 23 (pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine).
8. True: Viral pneumonia can be caused by an influenza virus and may be remedied with an antiflu medicine. Three drugs are available: rimantadine (Flumadine), oseltamivir (Tamiflu), and zanamivir (Relenza).
9. False: Pneumonia can be a serious and life-threatening infection. This is true especially in the elderly, children, and those who have other serious medical problems, such as COPD, heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.