You’ve heard that regular movement and healthy eating are key to maintaining senior heart health, but you might not have heard people acknowledging how challenging it can be. It’s not that older people don’t want to maintain their heart health—it’s that they face very real barriers to doing so that aren’t always apparent.
Whether it’s impaired coordination and joint pain or reduced strength and balance, the mobility issues seniors face can make it hard to maintain their heart health. But in Columbus, they’re in luck: The community offers plenty of resources to make healthy living easier for older people.
Here are a few of the best options:
Heart Health Resources in Central Ohio
From healthy meals and workout classes available at home to convenient and accessible cardiac care, Columbus has no shortage of ways for seniors to maintain their heart health. Here are some of our favorites:
Order Them a Healthy Meal
As we age, mobility issues like arthritis, fatigue and impaired balance can complicate most daily tasks—including the most vital ones like preparing and eating food. While smoothies and other nutritional drinks will keep them going, they don’t offer the satisfaction of a good, healthy meal.
Sometimes, the best way to help your loved one improve their heart health is to just make a delicious, satisfying meal appear at their doorstep. (The fact that it brightens their day doesn’t hurt, either.) Gone are the days when delivery meant pizza and fried chicken. These days, a wide variety of high-quality healthy restaurants like Northstar Cafe are ready to serve fresh, healthy food anywhere in Columbus.
When ordering for your loved one, it’s helpful to get them enough food for a few meals. Be strategic about it: Cold dishes like salads are fine to eat right out of the fridge, while soups and stews reheat well. Handhelds like sandwiches, burgers and burritos are a great first meal, but they tend to fall apart in the microwave. Stay away from fried dishes, which travel poorly and reheat even worse—and they’re rarely heart-healthy anyway.
Get Them Moving, Rain or Shine
Regular exercise is crucial for seniors’ heart health, but it can also be a lot harder for them than you might expect. Even for seniors who don’t have joint pain, muscle weakness or other mobility issues to contend with, the winter weather in Columbus can make many workout classes unpleasant or impossible to access.
What Ohio seniors really need is a form of gentle, doable exercise that’s both fun and doable from home. There are a number of new workout programs that have actually achieved it.
One of our favorites is Ageless Grace, which has live instructors who will lead seniors through chair-based movements, while socializing with them to keep them entertained. Their classes are available both in-person and online, so there’s no need for your loved one to miss a workout just because of bad weather.
Get Help From Medical Professionals
Having a healthy diet and a solid workout routine are great for seniors’ heart health, but they’re no substitute for professional care from an expert medical team. However, quality cardiac care can be hard to find—but Heart of Ohio Family Health is there to help.
Heart of Ohio is a nonprofit healthcare provider dedicated to making heart health accessible to the Columbus community. With six convenient locations around the area, they ensure quality cardiac care is never far away.
They also understand that just telling seniors to eat better doesn’t work—you need to show them how. That’s why they offer personalized counseling that factors in older people’s needs and abilities to design a healthy diet they can actually follow. With their help, your loved one will be able to turn healthy eating from a theory to a practice.
Find Help With Senior Heart Health in Columbus, OH
Keeping heart-healthy habits can be a challenge for older people, but with the resources available in Columbus, it’s easier than you might expect. From delicious, healthy meals available to deliver to conveniently located heart health experts, there are plenty of options in the area to help your loved one maintain their heart health.
If your loved one needs a little more help with the everyday aspects of heart health, never fear: FirstLight Home Care of Central Ohio is there for them. Not only do our compassionate caregivers offer help with daily tasks like bathing and dressing, they can also offer transportation to appointments, act as a workout buddy and even handle cooking and light tidying.
Ready to see how our caregivers can help your loved one maintain their heart health? Contact us today.
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