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Health in Later Life

Resources for health aging, coping with the challenges of age, and major life changes for older adults and their family caregivers.

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Resource Collections on Later Life

Browse our guides for healthy aging and coping with the challenges of age, helping to care for an older adult, and planning for major life changes

Elderly father adult son and grandson out for a walk in the park.
Navigate Common Later Life Concerns
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Care for an Older Adult
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Plan for Later Life
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Staying Healthy, Advocating for Ourselves

Browse our collections on staying healthy during a wildfire, extreme weather, power outage, or other climate emergency; on coping with the COVID pandemic; and on how to communicate clearly with our health care team.

Plan Ahead to Protect Your Health in a Disaster

Preparing for health concerns in an emergency, power outage, or evacuation.

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Older, asian woman getting COVID-19 shot
COVID-19 Information

Coronavirus updates and resource guide for Santa Clara County, CA.

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Older, asian woman getting COVID-19 shot
Communication Advice For Better Health Care

Clear, two-way communications and advocating for ourselves for the best health care.

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Advocating for Ourselves and Loved Ones in Healthcare Settings

Being informed and aware about health empowers people to take better care of themselves, of their loved ones, and the health of their communities.

But all too often differing priorities between patients and health care professionals, or perhaps a history of distrust, disrespect, or maltreatment, make it difficult to assert what’s important to us.

To help people advocate for their needs in their health care, PlaneTree Health Library offers this video:

Muslims in Conversation: Reaching for Equity and Respect in Healthcare. Created in collaboration with ING (Islamic Networks Group), 2022.

Community Events Calendar

We’ve launched an events calendar to serve seniors and older adults in the Bay area. Our events calendar is a central hub for all free health related events in Santa Clara county.

Upcoming events:

Current Month

june

08jun5:00 pm6:00 pmVirtual EventMedication Cost SavingsSponsored by Stanford Health Library

Event Details

This presentation is part of the monthly Diabetes Wellness Group webinar series from the Stanford Medicine Diabetes Care Program. Webinars are free and open to adults with diabetes and their

Event Details

This presentation is part of the monthly Diabetes Wellness Group webinar series from the Stanford Medicine Diabetes Care Program. Webinars are free and open to adults with diabetes and their families. You don’t need to be a Stanford patient to join.

Xin Gu, PharmD

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(Thursday) 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Organizer

Stanford Health Library

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july

13jul5:00 pm6:00 pmVirtual EventNot Your Regular SaladsSponsored by Stanford Health Library

Event Details

This presentation is part of the monthly Diabetes Wellness Group webinar series from the Stanford Medicine Diabetes Care Program. Webinars are free and open to adults with diabetes and their

Event Details

This presentation is part of the monthly Diabetes Wellness Group webinar series from the Stanford Medicine Diabetes Care Program. Webinars are free and open to adults with diabetes and their families. You don’t need to be a Stanford patient to join.

Jessica Shipley, MS, RD, CDCES

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(Thursday) 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

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Stanford Health Library

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there are a lot of reasons why it might be harder to get to sleep (or stay asleep) right now. Daylight lasting longer and the temptation to be more active in the evening is one seasonal reason, that might compound other stress-related or medication-related burdens on sleep.

This short video from McMaster University's Optimal Aging Portal is a good summary of non-medical things we can do to improve our sleep patterns:
www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/blog/detail/videos/2023/05/17/insomnia-non-medication-treatment-stra...

For more detail on getting good sleep, see our collections at:
library.planetree-sv.org/later-life/sleep

#insomnia #sleep #sleepwell #sleepbetter #sleeppatterns
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Insomnia: Non-medication treatment strategies

www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org

In this 2-minute video, Dr. Tricia Woo talks about non-medication strategies to treat insomnia.
3 weeks ago
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Dr. Jetelina explains this, loud & clear: declaring the COVID “emergency” phase over does NOT mean we are no longer at risk. Instead, it means we have to learn to live with it, while keeping as safe as we can.

“This doesn’t mean that COVID-19 is gone. SARS-CoV-2 is currently mutating 2 times faster than the flu. We will get future waves, but hopefully these will be “wavelets” given the population-level immunity from vaccines and infections. And wavelets will happen several times a year. The probability of a variant of concern (which would be named Pi) is still ~20% in the next 1.5 years. If one emerges, it would likely cause a tsunami. (We saw something similar happen after the 1918 flu emergency ended.) And we cannot ignore the fact that COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in many countries. This will likely remain for years.

This doesn’t mean that we can go back to pre-pandemic times. This does not mean that some countries (cough, cough U.S.) don’t have serious underlying problems that need to be addressed. It’s beyond time to confront the threats to our individual and collective health so we are not in a constant state of emergency. We cannot keep living in a perpetual cycle of panic and neglect.

Bottom line

I welcome this decision to end the emergency for the same reasons I thought it was time to end the American national emergency. We now find ourselves in an awkward phase with this virus—somewhere between a full-blown emergency and an endemic state of predictability. (Epidemiologists don’t have a word for this phase.)

Use this time to take a deep breath, cry, reflect, hit a pillow, meditate and/or celebrate surviving (figurately and literally) the past 3.5 years. We deserve all the feelings today, especially for those of us on the front lines who sacrificed so much. Today is a monumental symbol of this life-changing event. But then we need to hold our heads high and continue fighting COVID-19 and improving our systems so we don’t repeat our failures.

The end of an emergency is the beginning of preparedness.”

open.substack.com/pub/yourlocalepidemiologist/p/a-monumental-moment-end-of-international

#COVID #COVID19 #COVID2019
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A monumental moment: End of international emergency

open.substack.com

Today the World Health Organization declared the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This is a huge moment in our story arc of the fight against COVID-19. Here is what...
1 month ago
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Losing balance is scary at any age - but older people are wise to be especially wary of falling. There's a lot we can do to improve our balance, work on flexibility, and preserve our strength as we age, as these blog posts explain:

www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/hitting-the-headlines/detail/hitting-the-headlines/2023/04/26/falls-...

However, other culprits can be involved in serious falls, like tripping hazards and medications that cause dizziness. You'll find more information on how to lower risks of falling, and on how to recover from a fall, in our collection of resources for later life, at: library.planetree-sv.org/later-life/balance

#fallrisk #RiskOfFalling #SeniorFalls
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Falls: How to lower your risk

www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org

It is important to remember that falling should not be considered inevitable, but there are many things you can do to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground. Incorporating exercises into your dai...
1 month ago
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Family Caregiver Alliance & OpenhouseSF are starting a monthly support group for LGBTQ+.

From the announcement:
"Join us via Zoom as we discuss the stresses, challenges, and variety of experiences that come with providing care in our community. This group is for caregivers of those with a variety of illnesses, disorders, and challenges.
If you are caring for someone with Dementia-specific challenges, we encourage you to check out the LGBTQ Caregivers of those with Dementia Support Group."

FCA page for support groups: www.caregiver.org/connecting-caregivers/support-groups/

And also check out PlaneTree Health Library's collections of online resources for LGBTQ+ elders,
LGBTQ+ Later Life library.planetree-sv.org/later-life/lgbtq

#lgbtqseniors #lgbtqcommunity
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1 month ago
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