Health & Fitness Winter 2021

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Long-term care facilities battle COVID-19, public perception A recent report by AARP found that fewer than one percent of Americans live in long-term care facilities, but 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths have occurred there.

The report details a multitude of reasons why this has happened, especially in the early days of the pandemic.

There has been another surge in nursing home deaths around the country following the Thanksgiving holiday, although Illinois and Michigan are faring better than other states.

Michelle Pollard has seen the stories about the number of people in long-term care facilities who have died due to COVID-19, and they make her sad.

As the care center administrator for Lutheran Hillside Village (LHV) in Peoria, Ill., part of Lutheran Senior Services, Pollard oversees the long term care and rehabilitation areas of the community, which have a capacity of 107 beds. She knows how hard the staff at LHV works to protect and care for the residents, a group that is highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus.

“I don’t feel people understand the hard work that goes on in running a skilled nursing center, the dedication of the staff. Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a tricky virus.

We’re doing the best we can to keep a very vulnerable population alive.”

Pollard and the LHV team have worked hard to make sure it stays that way and have had minimal deaths due to COVID-19. Among the things they are doing is strictly limiting visits and contact with outside visitors, which has been hard on families and residents, many of whom don’t understand why these measures are necessary. Additional virtual visits and town hall meetings between loved ones help bridge the gap, as well as outdoor, safely distanced visits when the weather allows.

“Staff has been marvelous. They have become the surrogate family – activities of daily living, bathing, grooming, dressing, what our CNAs or nurses do – but they’ve become the hairdresser, the daughter, they’re reading stories, holding their hands, maybe watching

Wheel of Fortune, those extra things.

“They are dedicated to these individuals and want nothing more than to keep them safe and keep themselves safe. Without them, we wouldn’t have been successful to this point in what we’re doing,” explained Pollard.

Pollard is excited that LHV residents are able to now get the COVID-19 vaccine. They administered the first doses just after the start of the New Year. There is weekly universal testing for residents and staff.

All staff goes through a check station when they come to work, having their temperature taken and answering a series of questions about how they’re feeling. Once cleared, they enter the building with a face mask and face shield which must remain on at all times, no matter where they work, except when eating in the break room.

Pollard says the staff wears the extra protection with pride, which is why she struggles when she sees people in the general public going mask-less in public places.

“It’s heartbreaking to me. I would love to say to them ‘Maybe you should spend a day in my shoes or in my staff’s shoes. Or go to a hospital or visit an ICU and see the outcome of not washing your hands, wearing your mask, socially distancing.’ It’s disheartening, and it’s very sad that people totally disregarding what’s needed to get this virus under control.”

Pollard appreciates the support LHV has received from partners like OSF HealthCare over the course of the pandemic. Matt Nieukirk, Director of Skilled Nursing Facilities for OSF, says the long-term care facilities they work with – nearly 50 across the OSF Ministry – have often been in a thankless position. He applauds their efforts to provide the best care possible during these trying times.

“There’s probably more people who’ve had it and recovered from it versus who had it and died from it.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been outbreaks and some serious cases where residents have died, but for the most part the facilities have done an excellent job

of keeping COVID out and keeping their residents safe.

These facilities are surviving. I guarantee you, 10 years from now we’ll look back – two years from now, maybe 6 months from now – we’ll look back and think it was just another crisis that we were able to get through.”

For Michelle Pollard, that day can’t come soon enough.

Learn more about the skilled nursing care offered in collaboration with OSF HealthCare.

Forty percent of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in nursing homes, like Lutheran Hillside Village (LHV) in Peoria, Ill. STOCK PHOTO Health & Fitness

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New study links insomnia, Type 2 Diabetes Almost everyone suffers from bouts of insomnia from time to time. In fact, nearly 60 million Americans a year experience insomnia and wake up feeling unrefreshed. The common sleep disorder can make it hard to fall asleep, hard to stay asleep, or cause someone to wake up too early and not be able to get back to sleep.

“It needs to have some daytime consequence to be considered insomnia,” explained Dr. Sarah Zallek, medical director, OSF Sleep. “You can’t just have a little trouble sleeping and feel great in the day and we would call it insomnia; we would say that’s a little trouble falling asleep. Insomnia is really trouble sleeping that is associated with daytime dysfunction, like tiredness or inattention or mood problems and so on.”

For most people, insomnia goes away after lifestyle factors like family or work stresses resolve. However, for those who suffer from ongoing untreated insomnia, the National Institutes of Health warns it can increase the risk for a myriad of health issues, including stroke, seizures, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Now a new large-scale study found – type 2 diabetes can be added to that list. The study, published in the journal Diabetologia, indicates that long-term insomnia raises the risk for type 2 diabetes by 17%.

“What they found that was new is that insomnia is a causal risk factor for diabetes. So it’s not just associated, and you have to wonder, is it insomnia that has an effect on diabetes, or is it just an association? It’s actually one of the now known causes of things that can lead to diabetes,” says Dr. Zallek.

Researchers studied the DNA of nearly 900,000 people to determine insomnia can be considered an independent risk factor for the disease. According to Dr. Zallek, the good news is that insomnia is a treatable condition.

“A lot of insomnia is because of sleep habits, or what we call sleep hygiene, and we start with that,” she says. “Maximizing good sleep habits treats most people’s difficulty sleeping. And those sleep habits are best thought of as kind of a way to tell your brain that it’s good to be asleep in bed and awake everywhere else.”

Dr. Zallek says there are easy steps you can take to curb insomnia without medication. These include: * Maintaining the purpose of your bed: Use your bed only for sleeping and intimacy. When you get in bed, your brain should know it’s time to go to sleep. * Following a sleep schedule: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. * Staying active: Activity is an important sleep hygiene step. However, to avoid restlessness, you should schedule this active time a few hours before you plan on going to bed. * Scheduling meals: Avoid late dinners and late-night snacks, and limit caffeine.

Those with persistent trouble sleeping or sleeplessness should see a provider who specializes in sleep medicine.

Most people with insomnia do not need medication or a sleep test. A sleep specialist can usually help reduce the issues that might be leading to insomnia, or work around them with sleep-promoting strategies.

Those with persistent trouble sleeping or sleeplessness should see a provider who specializes in sleep medicine.

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One foot forward:

HEALTH & FITNESS

WINTER 2021

YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD TO START EXERCISING e all know how important it is to incorporate exercise into our daily routine.

It’s really important for people over 50, a group especially vulnerable to illness, chronic diseases and depression. Experts say that being active and exercising regularly can actually help fight the effects of aging.

“The benefits of exercising over the age of 50 are reducing your risks of certain diseases, and problems that occur as we age like muscle loss, arthritis, osteopenia (bone loss), just different things that get harder as we get older,” said Ricki Hickok, exercise physiologist, OSF HealthCare.

Most experts like Hickok recommend 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise per day at least five days per week. That might be easy for some, but exercising after 50 is far different than working out in your 20s and 30s. That’s why it’s important to make sure you start slow and have realistic expectations. Most importantly, consult with your doctor before starting any type of program.

“It is definitely different in terms of intensity, time length that you can spend doing it, types of exercise, a lot of people over the age of 50 have some deconditioning or some arthritis already building up that we have to be careful of,” said Ricki Hickok, exercise physiologist, OSF HealthCare. “It is important as you age to get doctor’s clearance because of these factors that have occurred over time, and it can be different in the way you might not like the same exercises you did

20 years ago.”

That includes strength training. There are many benefits of strength training, but getting started after 50 comes with challenges—especially if you have a history of back, hip, knee, or other joint pain. Hickok recommends strength training two or three times a week and working on your arms, shoulders and legs in the process.

“Strength training is really important as we age especially going back to arthritis and bone loss,” said Ricki Hickok, exercise physiologist, OSF HealthCare.

“We want to make sure we have strong

muscles to support our bones. It’s important to start easy, start simple, if you have no prior knowledge or experience with strength training it’s great to refer to people like me, exercise physiologists or personal trainers at a local fitness facility.”

The same goes for aerobic exercise.

Some of the best ways to get your heart pumping are running, swimming, biking or just working around the house.

Walking is a great way to exercise because it’s accessible and requires no equipment. The key is to shoot for 10,000 steps a day.

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“There are so many different types of activities and it helps because we all need to be productive in other forms,” said Ricki Hickok, exercise physiologist, OSF HealthCare. “The house needs cleaning, the snow needs shoveling or if you need to use a snow blower, that’s okay too, pushing that through the snow is tough work. If you have a garden or grandchildren to play with, those are great options.

Just cleaning the house speed it up to get your heart beat faster, or do maybe a couple of squats in between dusting or walking with the vacuum a little bit quicker.”

Starting an exercise program later in life might be hard at first so Hickok recommends a few helpful tips – keep an exercise journal, work out with friends or find a free online app to track your progress.

But no matter how you do it, the most important thing is to just get started.

“Especially as we age we have to take the pressure off of ourselves and our expectations,” said Ricki Hickok, exercise physiologist, OSF HealthCare. “I think a lot of people feel forced to exercise when it should feel good and something that you look forward to. If you don’t find what you enjoy, it’s going to be hard to find success.”

For more information, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts say that being active and exercising regularly can actually help fight the effects of aging.

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Get a grip:

AVOID HAND INJURIES THIS WINTER It can be relaxing and peaceful to enjoy the snow if you are able to look at it from inside the warmth of your own home.

But in most cases, we need to venture out at some point. Going out into wintery weather means cold hands and clearing paths to be able to walk and drive safely.

However, too much time spent outside when it’s cold or not taking proper safety measures when outside can result in serious, even life-threatening, illness and injury to your hands and upper extremities.

“We have three main categories of injuries that we worry about in the hand and upper extremity. Number one is the appearance of snow blower injuries when we have large accumulations of snow, number two is the appearance of slip and fall injuries causing fractures in the hand when we have ice or snow on the ground, and the third one comes with extreme cold in the form of frostbite injuries,” says Ramsey Ellis, M.D., fellowship-trained hand surgeon, OSF HealthCare.

In fact, the Consumer Products Safety Commission estimates that 3,000 people

are treated in emergency rooms in the United States for snow blower injuries each year.

“It’s so important when using a snow blower to never reach your hand into the auger, or the spinning mechanism that helps disrupt and throw the snow – because even if you have your snow blower turned off, there are instances in which there is stored energy and the auger can still spin.

So if you reach in and dislodge the obstruction and that residual energy fires off, you can sustain a severe hand injury that results in amputated fingers, lacerated fingers, and severe fractures,” cautions Dr. Ellis.

While outside snow blowing your driveway or clearing a path to your car or front porch, another thing to be cautious of is slipping and falling on ice. Dr. Ellis sees “slip and fall” hand and wrist injuries quite often during the winter.

“One of the most common injuries we see in the winter is a slip and a fall onto outstretched hands/wrists, or what we call

a FOOSH. People fall onto their wrists and hands, and they sustain radius fractures that require operative intervention. So one of the really important safety measures to try to avoid those types of injuries in the winter is to wear really good footwear that has appropriate tread and to, on your own property, shovel and salt or sand in order to avoid the buildup of slippery surfaces on your sidewalk, your front walk, and on your path to your vehicle,” explains Dr. Ellis Another result of extremely cold conditions that can cause damage to your hands is frostbite. Signs and symptoms of frostbite include white or grayish-yellow skin area, skin that feels firm or waxy, and numbness. Dr. Ellis warns that the effects of frostbite can range from minor to very severe.

“At the minimum it can cause just redness, soreness, and swelling and at the maximum it can cause loss of digits and loss of hands from necrosis. That is extremely unusual since most people realize before that stage, but you can get

Winter typically brings an uptick in hand injuries ranging from falls, frostbite, and snowblower injuries.

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small fingertip ulcerations quite easily and that’s something we do see.”

Additionally, while hypothermia most often occurs at very cold temperatures, the CDC warns that it can occur even at cool temperatures above 40°F. Signs and symptoms of hypothermia include shivering, confusion, memory loss, slurred speech, fumbling hands, and drowsiness.

The best way to avoid both hypothermia and frostbite is to take preventative measures to protect yourself when outdoors during the winter months.

“The key things are to limit the duration of exposure and to make sure to have excellent protective gear if you’re going to be doing prolonged work in cold environments. So having a really good set of mittens and gloves and wearing silk liners and taking frequent breaks,” Dr. Ellis advises.

If you experience any of the three major winter hand injuries and you are unable to treat it at home, call 911 or go to the closest urgent care center to seek professional medical attention.

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WINTER 2020

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Stay of top on your—and your family’s—health by making an appointment for a wellness visit today. If you need help finding a doctor, call (888)-39-MERCY. mercyhealthsystem.org/primarycare

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