In her second podcast Nurse Practitioner Mary Buckland discusses the risk of falls and prevention, proper nutrition, hygiene and weight loss, wandering and isolation. Nurse Buckland in addition offers meaningful suggestions to improve quality of life.
Senior Nurse Practitioner Mary Buckland
My contact info is mary@mhpnw.org
Show Transcript
Miranda Hamilton 0:00
Welcome to it's just wallpaper, a podcast dedicated to providing solutions for seniors and families dealing with life changing health and living conditions. Your host Tom Deutsch is a graduate of Columbia University School of Public Health and administrative medicine. Tom brings 43 years of executive experience working for the care and well being of senior citizens with credentials and licenses as a nursing home administrator, life insurance agent with a long term care endorsement, professional guardian and court appointed guardian ad litem in over 1500 cases. Tom brings a lifetime of knowledge to help you and your family make the best decisions you can. And now from our studio in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, here is Tom Deutsch
Tom Deutsch 0:42
over the course of my career working in all venues of long term care. Time after time, I witnessed important decisions being made based upon impulse and non essential factors. Welcome to it's just wallpaper where my guests and I aim to provide our listeners with thoughtful information and resources to enable them to make the best decisions the first time when we visit our clinician or specialist as we age, it becomes increasingly more important that we be good historians of our health record, or can rely upon someone who is when I used to accompany my parents to physician appointments. I was amazed at what they told him and what they simply did not recall. Joining us today for a second podcast is nurse practitioner Mary Buckland. Mary Buckland is founder and president of mobile health care providers Northwest. She has extensive experience in internal medicine, family health care, urgent care, for ology hospice and palliative care. Mary, I want to thank you very much for coming back with us on this program.
Mary Buckland 2:04
Thank you for having me.
Tom Deutsch 2:06
on previous program, we talked about core comorbid factors that should be considered in this COVID-19 atmosphere and the impact it can have on the elderly. We also emphasize the need to have a good story and present when visiting a physician. Mary also discussed the need for clear and concise state planning documents for power of attorney and Advanced Directive. In this previous broadcast, we also talked about medication management. And now I'd like to talk about falls and the dangers that they pose to our seniors. What are your concerns with falls
Mary Buckland 3:00
Falls in seniors in and of themselves really increase the risk of mortality. Anytime somebody breaks a hip that can increase their mortality, even more. So the key to falls and reducing mortality is the key to is is the key to reducing or preventing falls in our community here in Vancouver worked very passionately on reducing fall risk in our seniors and before covid HIV we were constantly sharing information among many of the eldercare aspects of the conceit community to make sure we reduce those walls. A
Tom Deutsch 3:44
lot of our seniors, great great a majority of our seniors are not living in facilities and are living at home or in retirement centers. So what services are out there that can analyze and look at potential risks for seniors in this environment?
Mary Buckland 4:02
Very good question. Most physical therapy, home health physical therapy departments or programs will send us physical therapists out or an occupational therapist and they can look at the home and they can identify what areas or what things increase the seniors fall risk and they can work on making sure that the home environment is as safe as possible in reducing hazard of trips and slips and making sure that those obstacles are removed from the home to help reduce that risk.
Tom Deutsch 4:42
So what would be some examples of what I'm thinking about or throw rugs that are in the house? Obviously I you know, possibly if there's a two story home to try to try to move somebody downstairs so the stairs are not In the way you're presented danger, if possible, obviously, that's not always the case. But people should take a good hard look at what's on the inside. To prevent that various serious fall, that could be a best Sentinel event. For the senior.
Mary Buckland 5:20
Yes. throw rugs are a huge, huge factor in surfing. Everything that really needs to be remembered and many folks need to be reminded is the use of those mobility devices that help keep them on safer and upright such as walkers, canes. Sometimes people use wheelchairs, too, because they do not have good balance or their legs aren't strong enough to support them for periods of time. And certainly, analyzing somebody's care environment if if they can't traverse stairs safely, then trying to adapt to our environment where they can be an all in all on one level and reduce the risk of going up and down stairs is a very helpful intervention that can that can take place if possible.
Tom Deutsch 6:10
You know, one of the things you mentioned earlier is that I don't think our listeners and perhaps they do but really understand the impact of a fall on a fractured hip and how that can really shorten life and have a dramatic impact on our seniors.
Mary Buckland 6:28
Yes. Anytime we have somebody that falls and breaks a bone or requires surgery, anesthesia, hospitalization, changing care environment, such as a skilled facility, anytime somebody that is a senior citizen lands in the hospital from a such an instance that in and of itself increases their risk of becoming delirious, it's very common for for seniors to become delirious when they're hospitalized. And anytime we put the senior in the hospital, we are on the medical side, bracing ourselves to be prepared for if that delirium still develops that in in somebody that when they become delirious in the hospital that in and of itself increases their mortality risk, the longer that is that persists. And that's not even factoring in if they've had surgery to repair a broken hip, for example,
Tom Deutsch 7:27
you know, I'm not here to scare our listeners. But even in my own mother, she had an nst she based delirium, which in fact, never cleared and impacted her for the rest of her life. So
Mary Buckland 7:41
yeah, that can happen. That certainly can happen. And I'm sorry that happened to her.
Tom Deutsch 7:48
Let's talk about incontinence. And what you know, what possible steps we can do to mitigate incontinence are there things that are out there,
Mary Buckland 8:00
incontinence can happen it's an unfortunate and frustrating thing that we have to deal with. Many times stress incontinence can sneak in more, so we see it more so and ladies. Some of that can be managed with main just mild incontinence pads to help for those times when when somebody sneezes or coughs or maybe they wait a little too long and their bladders too full. And there are certainly exercises that can take place that your that your urologist would recommend to try to increase the muscle strength within the pelvic floor. And certainly making sure that the prostate health is is factored in for gentlemen to make sure that they can evacuate their bladder and make sure the prostate isn't too large. Those are all things that we look at. There are medications that can also be considered depe...
