Osteoporosis can develop in anyone, but the main group that usually gets diagnosed with osteoporosis are older women, especially those with typically smaller bone structures such as non-Hispanic white women and Asian women. Other risk factors can also increase the possibility of your loved one developing osteoporosis such as family history, chronic health issues with an overactive thyroid, or poor eating habits such as not consuming enough calcium or vitamin D or suffering from an eating disorder. Being able to get outside almost daily and soak up some quality vitamin D from the sun’s rays can go a long way toward helping a loved one maintain better bone health and snowbird services providers could assist in a situation where one travels to warmer locations during the winter months.
Osteoporosis Symptoms
Many times, there are no signs for people that their bones are getting extremely weak. Everyone’s bones lose mass as they age, but with osteoporosis, the bone loss is accelerated due to some of the reasons listed above and the person isn’t aware of it until they break a bone. The bone break can come from something common like a bad fall but when the bones are extremely weak, it can even come from something as “innocent” as bending over or coughing.
Other symptoms to watch for include:
- Your loved one is shorter than she used to be. Osteoporosis often leads to someone losing some of their height. The loss of bone mass can affect the spine as well as other bones, making them shorter.
- Your loved one is perpetually hunched over. This occurs when the weakened bones in the spine, particularly the vertebrae, fracture and collapse, causing an exaggerated curve in the upper back.
- Your loved one has recurring back pain due to a possible broken bone or vertebrae.
Living with Osteoporosis
While your loved one cannot do much to change the damage that has been done, her doctor will recommend some lifestyle changes for her to lessen the damage that will be done in the future. Some recommendations will be to limit specific activities that may increase her risk of falling and breaking a bone, while other recommendations from her doctor may be based on her diet and increasing her intake of key nutrients to strong bones like calcium and Vitamin D.
If your loved one lives in a part of the country where the best source of vitamin D – the sun – is limited for a good part of the year (such as the winter months), and she has the resources, she might consider becoming what is often known as a “snowbird,” where she has two residences with one of them being in a warmer, sunnier area during the cold and dark winter months.
If this is an option for your loved one, you should also consider finding a provider who specializes in snowbird services for those who call the southernmost parts of our country home for several months a year. With snowbird services, your loved one can still get the home care needs she has taken care of so that she maintains all her healthy habits while soaking up that sun. Snowbird services can even work with family and physicians to help your loved one stay on a healthy diet that builds bone health to increase the benefits to her bone health while in their area.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Snowbird Services in Plainview NY, please contact the caring staff at Star Multi Care today. Call (631) 424-7827
Star Multi Care is a Trusted Home Care Agency serving Long Island and in NYC including Dix Hills, Floral Park, Great Neck, Huntington, Manhasset, Massapequa, Northport, Plainview, Rockville Center, Stony Brook, Suffolk County, Nassau County, and Queens County.
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