Bed rails for the elderly are used both as a support and as a safety device. The bed rails are used to support elders, to help them sit and stand upright as they stay beside their beds. It is also used as a safety feature to avoid the elders from falling off of the bed during their sleep.

Hospital Bed Rail

How to pick bed side rails for seniors:

Getting your bed side rails installed is the easy part; the hard part comes in picking which one to get. Here are some things to remember when picking bed rails.

Bed Size matters – When buying your bed rails, always make sure that you emphasize to the sales person whether you’re using a king, a queen, or a single bed. The length of the bed is also important so that you know which bed rails are suitable for your bed.

Easy to use – Try getting the collapsible rails which are similar to the hospital bed rails. They make it easier to transfer the patient from one bed to another and can easily be lowered down in case the patient wants to get out of the bed.

And last but not the least, these bed rails should also be installed correctly for it to serve its purpose properly and for it to last longer.

It is common for elderly people have weak and brittle bones, which sometimes make it hard for them to walk from one place to another. Most of the time they rely on canes and other walking supports, but most of the time even with these devices we cannot avoid sudden falls.

Here are some of the devices and tools you can use to assure that your home is equipped with elderly protection:

Active Safe Hip by Tytex

Hip protection. Hip protectors come in the form of underwear with sewn in plastic hip guards. Hip guards protect against unprotected fall and prevent hip fractures. Hip fractures happen due to sideway falls, which is why hip guards are sewn on the sides.

Floor guards. You can start placing floor cushions on places, which are likely to be accident prone areas in the house. This could be the kitchen or the bathroom. Aside from placing a floor cushion you can also place anti slip mats to avoid the elders or anyone from any unwanted accidents.

Posey Floor Cushion

Most of the time, we oversee these things and forget that a small slip can lead to a bruise or even a hip fracture. Hip protections devices and floor guards are usually the first things that come to mind when we think of preventing these accidents. But these are only initial measures to be taken.

For elderly protection around the house it is also ideal that bed rails, hand rails, and different types of grab bars are installed all around the house so that our elders will never run out of things to cling on to while walking around.

What is light therapy?

To begin with, light therapy is was one of the solutions to the said SAD patients or people experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder. It was said that the effects of slight exposure was similar to the effects of taking anti depressants which meant that the light made the patients happier and lifter feeling of depression.

SAD is a form of depression, which is experienced by 4-6% of the population wherein women are said to experience SAD four times more than men. Common symptoms include lethargy and feelings of sluggishness.

Elite SAD Light Therapy Lamp

SAD light or the use of bright light therapy is one of the cures to alleviate SAD. During this treatment a patient will spend a minimum of 10 minutes facing a bright light therapy lamp. This is usually done during the winter when people are experiencing it the most. Some would even continue the treatment up until springtime arrives.

SAD light therapy works to release the hormone serotonin from the brain. This hormone helps make a person more energetic, alert, and active.

Day Light Sky Light

Nowadays this light therapy is not use solely for the purpose of treating SAD patients but in treating other patients such as those experiencing difficulty in sleeping and is also used to combat Jetlag. Some companies have even installed bright light therapy lamps to their offices for employees on night shift duties to keep them awake all through the night.

Are there side effects to light therapy?

Patients undergoing light therapy should also be careful since like some treatments, there may be unwanted side effects. Some side effects of SAD include insomnia, fatigue, headache, and irritability. So if you start to experience these side effects than it may be better to find another treatment besides the SAD light therapy treatment.

Resources

A background and introduction to chronobiology and mood disorders
Chronobiology and mood disorders: background and introduction
Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 2000;25(5):443-5. 
Benjamin Rusak, PhD

Light Therapy: Topic Overview
WebMD Website

Light Therapy for “Winter Blues” 
Mayo Clinic Website
Mayo Clinic Staff

Light Up the Blues: Light Therapy for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
MedicineNet Website
Melissa Stoppler, M.D., Barbara K. Hecht, Ph.D.

Gone were the days when the word bar was defined as an establishment selling alcoholic drinks. Today you won’t just find liquids at a bar; you just might find an oxygen bar! Yes, an oxygen bar is technically an establishment that sells oxygen with different scents. They say that inhaling this will give anyone a relaxing and rejuvenating experience. Most oxygen bars would use aromatic oils as scents for their oils, but now, some bard use food grade products to provide guests with a wider selection of scents to choose from.

Oxygen Bar Turbo

Your Very Own Personal Oxygen Bar

What is better than getting your very own personal oxygen bar in the comfort of your own home?  So what’s so special about an oxygen bar when you can simply inhale the air around you for oxygen? Here are some of the benefits of inhaling air from a portable oxygen bar:

• Oxygen bars provide 90-99% pure oxygen, free from all types of bacteria, dirt and pollution
• Aromatherapy helps clear the mind, heightens awareness, and even reduces the onset of migraine and headaches
• It helps soothes the mind and stabilizes the nervous system
• Proven to have a special anti aging effect on people
• Helps detoxify blood and strengthen the immune system

Know that you know all the benefits from inhaling air from an oxygen bar, why not get one now?

Personal Oxygen Bar

Buying an oxygen bar

Buying an oxygen bar does not necessarily mean buying a whole bar and getting all the equipment. You can simply get a small portable oxygen bar like the Rejuvenating Oxygen Bar Turbo Oxygen Concentrator by Zadro. It comes with a headset and ear buds and provides the best experience since you can actually listen to music with the product’s ear buds while inhaling oxygen infused with aromatic oils.

This is definitely one of the better personal oxygen bars out in the market!

When collagen is used to dress the wounds, the body’s collagen supply does not degenerate from strenuous activities of enzymes. In such case, the human body has the needed building materials for damage repair.

Fiberacole Plus Collagen Wound Dressing

How Collagen Dressing Helps

When a wound is given any other dressing except collagen, the body’s natural enzymes, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) will break down the damaged collagen so they will not be utilized for building the frames for growth of new tissues. However, due to the excessive production of the MMPs, which also break down even the healthy collagen, the wound becomes chronic.

Collagen dressings distract the MMPs from breaking down the healthy collagen with the additional collagen from dressings. Thus, the body’s healthy collagens are protected for more important chemical tasks.

Additional Benefits of Collagen Dressings

Collagen Dressing has other benefits. The most significant are:

1. Collagen from dressing absorbs the fluids.
2. It maintains the wound bed moist.
3. It acts as a barrier from external infection.
4. Collagen Dressings do not cling to the new tissues forming from the wounds. Hence, the collagen neither damages the tissue nor leaves behind fragments of fibers when new wound dressing is placed.
5. Using a collagen dressing can also accelerate the creation of fibroblast cells, which are essential in producing collagen and extra-cellular structures. The collagen dressings also draw the existing fibroblasts in the body towards the wound.

Sources of Collagen for Wound Dressings

The sources for collagen vary. But mostly, they are derived from animal sources such as pigs, horses, birds, and cows. The collaged extracted from these sources undergoes a purification process to fit for medical uses. Some forms of collagen dressing are sheets, pastes, ropes, and rectangular blocks. They all have non-stick membranes at the back.

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9862108

http://www.burnsurgery.org/Modules/BurnWound/rationale/collagen/collagen_dressing.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-collagen-dressing.htm