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College Kids and Grandchildren

As your child heads off to college (or as you watch your grandchild head off ) you feel a sense of relief and, of course, sadness as your baby moves to the next stage of life.

You’ve purchased the dorm room supplies — a small refrigerator, dorm-size sheets, new towels, decorations — and you are prepared to drive, fly or otherwise get them to their campus on time. Can you sit back and put up your feet on a job well done? Maybe not; there might just be one last task you need to check off your to-do list.

College Student Paperwork

As your child or grandchild gets older, you have less control over their life. This also becomes legally true when they turn 18. Once that happens, you do not automatically have the right to speak to their doctors, for example. Your child’s finances (even if you are supporting them) are private as well. So, you need them to sign three critical documents: a Health Care Power of Attorney with a HIPAA Release, a Durable Power of Attorney, and a Last Will and Testament.

The Health Care Power of Attorney allows you, after your child is 18, to make medical decisions if the child cannot do so.

When your child is younger than 18, you can make all medical decisions for them. That changes after they turn 18 and you lose that right. If they’re in an accident and are unable to make medical decisions for themselves, a Health Care Power of Attorney signed in advance would allow you to be their health care agent.

The HIPAA release form also is important. Many parents are probably still paying medical bills for their college-age students and helping them make medical decisions.

Sprain Pain

Treatment Tips to Get Back on Your Feet

QUESTION

I twisted my ankle while hiking in the Metroparks. What are the signs of a sprain and how do I treat it?

ANSWER

A typical ankle sprain has tenderness over the injured area, swelling and bruising. After the injury, most patients can walk on the affected foot. However, if you cannot put any weight on your foot because of severe pain, you may not have an ankle sprain but a fracture to one of the bones that makes up the ankle joint. If this is the case, you may need an X-ray of the ankle to look at the anatomy and to determine if there is a fracture.

There are three types of ankle sprains: medial, lateral and syndesmotic “high.” The most common type of sprain affects the lateral ligaments, and the most common ligament to be sprained is the anterior talofibular ligament. This type of injury is usually due to an inversion motion to the ankle and foot — the twisting movement of the foot inward.  

Treatment options for an ankle sprain include ice, compression, anti-inflammatory medications, elevation and support bracing. Severe ankle sprains may require a walking boot and crutches. Other treatment options can consist of platelet-rich-plasma injections or prolotherapy to help heal the injured ligament. Rehabilitation from an ankle sprain consists of range-of-motion, strengthening and balancing exercises.

If pain from the injury becomes unmanageable, many believe they need to go to the emergency room. But the ER is primarily designed to serve life-threatening emergencies. An urgent care center may be able to help you, but you will likely be seen by a generalist — not an orthopedic specialist. In both cases, you will walk out with a referral to have a second appointment with a specialist.

Better Hearing

Better Relationships & a Better Life

By Kathy McGowan

“What?”

“Huh?”

“What was that?”

“Pardon me.“

Hearing loss can become a heavy, uncomfortable burden causing awkward social encounters and ultimately alienating family and friends.

How many times do we repeat ourselves before we say, “Forget it,” and walk away? Or worse, we don’t bother to start a conversation because it takes too much effort.

The listener feels left out and ignored, resulting in hurt feelings and isolation.

Hearing loss harms our personal and professional relationships. Relationships require communication — the exchange of information and ideas between people — to be successful. Hearing loss breaks that connection.

The divorce rate among the hard of hearing is four times higher than the general population. A study of more than 1,000 people over age 40 with hearing loss shows how hearing issues can damage relationships.

More than 33 percent of those who responded admitted that misunderstandings from not hearing properly contributed significantly to arguments with family members.

Nearly two-thirds confessed to pretending to understand spoken dialogue and then floundering their way through conversations. Hearing loss can add stress to relationships, resulting in feelings of failure, anxiety and separation, and overall poor health.

Stay connected to your loved ones and avoid the effects of hearing loss. Have your hearing tested yearly, and if a loss is identified, take care of it.

Those who have their hearing loss corrected — either medically or with hearing aids — report less stress, improved relationships and a better quality of life.

Kathy McGowan is a doctor of audiology with Beltone Hearing and has been helping people hear better for 27 years. She is very excited about the great new technology available for hearing help. For a free hearing evaluation, go to Beltone.com or call 234-400-0201.

Many people exercise, and they do it for a variety of reasons.

Most tend to focus on cosmetic reasons, but the No. 1 thing that I’m interested in as an exercise professional is a functional ability — the ability to carry out everyday tasks with ease. You name it: walking, getting up from a chair, lifting, climbing stairs or participating in your favorite activities.

Senior Techniques

Those most affected by losses in functional ability are the elderly. However, with targeted strength training, they can see a rapid reversal of this condition.

Strength training stimulates skeletal muscular strengthening. All reasonable expectations from exercise are accessed through the skeletal muscles — the only window into the body — by strengthening them. Expectations should include:

• Improvements in bone density and balance
• Vascular and metabolic efficiency
• Joint stability
• Muscular strength
• Cosmetics

The elderly are just as capable of performing productive exercise as anyone and stand to gain as much, if not more, from strength training.

Research has shown that exercise programs for elderly patients have a role in preventing illness and injury, limiting functional loss and disability, and alleviating the course and symptoms of existing cardiac, pulmonary, musculoskeletal and metabolic disorders.

Of course, exercise safety is paramount when discussing training programs for elderly populations.

It is crucial to abide by preliminary exercise considerations. Attempting to stimulate physical improvements would not be worthwhile if someone gets hurt doing it.

Strength Training 101 for the Elderly

1. Choose only one to two days per week to do strength training. All of the “good stuff” happens while we recover from exercise, and this can take three to seven days. Recovery periods may need to be even longer as we age or become more advanced in our exercise performance.
2. Choose the minimum number of exercises that produce the greatest effect.

The Ultimate Fall Treat

Beer on the Vine

Pumpkin turns up in everything this time of year — and truthfully, some of the items are a bit weird.

Air fresheners. Coffee. Hand soaps. Cheerios. Not in the category of weird (at least in my book): beer.

My favorite beer store started stocking pumpkin ales at the end of summer. Please don’t judge, but it never occurred to me that they used real pumpkins. I thought they used pumpkin-ish spices like cinnamon and ginger and moved on to their next beer, letting the consumer’s imagination take it from there. Not true.

Great Lakes Brewing Company last year harvested somewhere in the range of 200 to 250 pumpkins grown organically at their Pint Size Farm. Located half an hour from the brewery on a historic farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Pint Size Farm’s half-acre plot produces pumpkins using traditional farming methods.

The completely organic, pesticide-free and artificial fertilizer-free produce is used seasonally in their brewpub for their Pumpkin Ale. Last year they also brewed a small batch Specter Detector, an experimental Belgian white ale using roasted white pumpkins.

Sure beats breakfast cereal.

Do You Know a Giver?

Give Him Up

Volunteers hate attention. Most are happy to go about their good deed doing without a lot of fuss from the rest of us. Too bad.

Shining a light on these good people reminds us that there’s plenty of generosity and positive things going on in Northeast Ohio. Learning about how others give sometimes results in a gentle nudge to the rest of us. Their kindheartedness has a ripple effect.

We’re again saluting local volunteers in Boomer’s November/December issue. Go ahead, let us know about a giver you’ve discovered. Send a description (150 words), contact information and a photo, if available, to [email protected]

Antiques and Collectibles

By Breanna Mona

What’s your attic’s net worth? Fighting off cobwebs and furry little critters is tough enough. Figuring out which mysterious trinkets are worth a pretty penny and what’s simply a hunk of junk is even tougher. You don’t need to appear on “Antiques Roadshow” to get to the bottom of it. Here’s the word from local antique experts.

Over It

Hummel, Royal Doulton, Precious Moments, Lladro — these names used to mean big bucks. But these days, most collectible figurines have lost their bite in the antique business. While still very collectible and worth something, they’re just not the money-makers they used to be. Hummels are a good example.

Jean Koepke, the owner of the Medina Antique Mall, says rarity counts, but the value has still declined.

“If they paid $150 for it, now they may only get $50,” she says.

Ryan Prpic — who manages Eastside Relics in Willoughby — agrees. He says a Royal Doulton figurine bought for $100 may only be worth around $40 today.

Why the decline? Pat Martin, owner of Antiques on the Square in Chardon, explains.

“The antique business changes so dramatically year after year — especially in the last 10 to 15 years,” Martin says. “Millennials want different things. They don’t collect like my generation did. Millennials look for functional pieces. They love repurposed antiques. They like painted furniture, etc.”

Other items Millennials are quick to pitch are pottery, china and glassware. Martin says there’s been at least a 50 percent drop in value — if not more — in these pieces.

What’s Hot Now

Which items are getting all the action across all generations? Furniture. Koepke says Hitchcock furniture is particularly sought after because it’s no longer made.

“It’s very popular and hard to find.