Month: May 2018

Pressure Points

On 17 may it was World Hypertension Day. The Heart Foundation is encouraging people to ‘know your numbers’.
“Blood pressure does naturally vary, but a reading under 120/80 is considered optimal. Readings over 120/80 mmHg and up to 139/89 mmHg are in the normal to high normal range. The reading measures the pressure in your arteries when your heart pumps (120) and when it relaxes between each beat (80).”
These are numbers to consider seriously!
Go to : www.heartfoundation.org.au/y…/know-your-risks/blood-pressure?

Simple things such as regular exercise, moderation in diet, watching your cholesterol and salt, good sleep, and quit smoking are great places to start.

Factors Affecting Breathlessness: Relaxed Posture

Factors affecting breathlessness of course has to include posture.

Tension in the upper body is one thing that you can start with.

So stand in front of a mirror and take a look after you’ve just done something that has left you puffy. As you catch your breath what can you see  – how are you standing, supporting your arms/shoulders, sitting down, chest heaving, shoulders going up and down???

Now that you know what you are doing normally, try this as an alternative;

Lean forward, support your upper body by leaning on the bench/ back chair or sit and lean on your thighs with your forearms, drop your shoulders and relax as you gradually slow the pace of your breathing.

This will do two things: 

  1. it will relieve the tension between your shoulder girdle and chest to allow for chest expansion
  2. it will release the accessory muscles in your upper body for the action you have been engaged in so they are not being overused.

Factors Affecting Breathlessness: Keep it close

A third way to reduce breathlessness in activity is to keep it close. So bring the work space up in front to waist level so there is no reaching and bending. This lessens the load on your heart and lungs thereby reducing the energy need and your level of breathlessness.

This can be done by putting the task on the table in front and sitting or by doing it on a table in standing or at a bench. The other way we have talked about previously is to have important daily used items on shelves between hip and shoulder height thereby bringing the activity closer to waist level.

This is the same for if you are lifting or moving items. Keeping it close reduces the strain on your arms and reduces your level of breathlessness. Remember never to hold your breath whilst you are lifting but continue to blow out through pursed lips in a gentle manner, always looking for ways to slide the load , break it up or use a trolley.

 

A Simple Fan to Reduce your Sense of Breathlessness

Breathlessness can be anxiety provoking when trying to get a job done and exert yourself. There is a lot of research that suggests that movement of air across the face and nose can reduce a persons sense of breathlessness and hence their level of anxiety .  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20471544

The main benefit is that it reduces your recovery time and is a self management  tool you can take anywhere you need it. If you don’t have a hand held fan in the moment then sit by an open window or on the verandah so the breeze crosses your face, especially the nose and mouth, and it may also help.

A hand held fan held 15- 20cm from the face works through cooling the nose and mouth with receptor messages sent to the brain altering the person’s sense of breathlessness, if your nose is blocked or mouth dry then it will be less effective.

The Lung Foundation has fans for sale in its online shop, alternatively they can be found with other retailers such as those specialising in electricals.

Hand-held fan

 

Genetic Risk & Dementia

The good thing is that even if someone in your family has had a diagnosis of dementia you can reduce your risk of getting it regardless of genes by working on the modifiable risk factors: eat healthy, exercise, manage your BP/diabetes/depression effectively, don’t smoke, socialise and get out and about, keep learning and stimulating your brain by joining a chess club, learn a language, or learn a new skill.

Factors Affecting Breathlessness – Take a Load Off

A fourth way to make activity easier is to lighten the load by sitting to do the task or by reducing lift and carry. Sitting uses less energy by taking the load off your body just in the same way that using trolleys can take the load off when you are moving.

Examples of this sitting to do the ironing, sitting to pot plants, leaning on the trolley in the supermarket, using a wheel barrow in the garden, a tray mobile in your living area, or a laundry trolley in the yard.

If you are struggling in getting about then try a wheelie walker that includes a seat and basket and this will assist you in staying mobile and connected with your community.

 

What Dementia Risk Factors are you Ignoring???

Studies have found that modifiable risks factors can make a difference and decrease the proportion of people developing dementia,  https://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/falling-dementia-rates-us-and-europe-sharpen-focus-lifestyle , the Framingham Study – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4943081/pdf/nihms762894.pdf

Modifiable means you can change it. They include: 

  • Low education attainment
  • Physical inactivity
  • Depression
  • Midlife hypertension
  • Diabetes
  • Smoking
  • Midlife obesity
  • Hearing loss
  • Social isolation

What are you going to do today to make a change for the ‘healthy’?

Factors Affecting Breathlessness: Big Tasks

We have been talking about how activity can make you breathless and ways to cope with this.

The second idea is to break up the task. This means to spread it out over several days, do a bit in the morning and then finish after lunch, or do one bit and delegate another bit to a family member or service provider.

For example, cleaning the house can be overwhelming but if you delegate the once a fortnight floor clean to a service and potter each day for 15 min to declutter or dust then the task becomes doable.

Another example is to wash your smalls in a bucket whilst you are seated  in the shower. Give them a swish round with your feet, gentle squeeze and hang on the laundry stand in the sun. Larger items can go in the machine when family drop by to help.

 

 

Factors Affecting Breathlessness: Store Smart

Everyone knows that activity increases our sense of breathlessness especially if there is bending and reaching involved. So how do we make this simpler? How to we make things easier so we can still do the things we want to do?

One idea is storage. The things we use for an activity whether its making a cup of tea or doing the laundry can often be placed in awkward positions so the effort in using the materials is what makes the job hard, not necessarily the job itself.

Store heavy items low and light items high and well used items at waist height. This is a recipe for ease and simplification around the home. this reduces lifting, bending and reaching loads within each activity that you do. For example, keep mugs on a cup rack on the bench and the tea caddy next to the kettle. In the laundry keep heavy laundry containers on a waist high bench and put your basket of wet washing on a chair when hanging on the line. This way you can get to that all important cup of tea a lot more easily.