14. Shelby Basciano

March 20, 2020April 16, 2020 ~ Henrik de Gyor ~ Leave a comment

Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Shelby Basciano about Occupational Therapy

(Duration: 35 minutes 31 seconds)

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Fidget Cubes

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Takeaways

Ask your doctor for a prescription for an occupational therapist to come and do a home visit and a walkthrough.

Transcript

Debi Lynes (00:03): Hi and welcome to aging in place for every stage in life. What if you could visit or have a home that would accommodate anyone at any age, any physical ability at any time? How cool would that be? That’s what we’re doing here at aging in place. Why me? Because I’m a doctor of psychology and I specialize in physical spaces in health and wellness. Also. I love designing with intent at any age. Why now? Because we the baby boomers want to age in place gracefully and we want our families around us as much as we can. And why you the audience? Because we want you to experience what it’s like to have a home that’s safe, aesthetically pleasing, and that you can live in at any age with any ability at any time. I’d like to introduce you now to Aging in Place Podcast for every stage in life.

Debi Lynes (01:04): Hi and welcome to Aging in Place Podcast for any stage in life. I’m here today with my friend Shelby Basciano. I’ve actually known Shelby since she was my spinning teacher maybe 20 years ago. So I appreciate you joining us today.

Shelby Basciano (01:18): Hey Debi, how are you?

Debi Lynes (01:21): I’m excited about talking to you. Shelby is a physical fitness guru, but in her professional life, she’s an occupational therapist. And you might be thinking to yourself, an occupational therapist and aging in place for any stage in life, whether you’re a child or middle-aged or an older adult. What does occupational therapy have to do with aging or even aging in your home?

Shelby Basciano (01:46): I’m not sure what if people are familiar with what occupational therapy is.

Debi Lynes (01:50): No, I’d love to start it with you.

Shelby Basciano (01:50): So let me this is what I tell when I do the power hour at the high school this is kind of a definition I get. Occupation: how you occupy your time. That would be the definition. So how do you occupy your time if you’re a baby okay, you poop, you play and then you sleep. You move your fingers, etcetera. So if you have some types of injury or disease process at that age, occupational therapists’ goal is to maximize your independence and wellbeing for whatever stage you’re at with meaningful goals. So, you know, I’m not going to go get a job for a baby because that would make no sense at all. But what we do need is to make sure that the baby can eat properly, sucking properly so they can gain weight and they can get nutrition and thrive. Right? So an occupational therapist is really important for early intervention situations. Okay. And usually it’s really, nowadays they’re really good about identifying babies in the hospital to get that early intervention. But again, that’s why we need access to healthcare. Am I allowed to go political here? We need good access to healthcare so that we can identify things like this early on because the earlier you treat or you start looking at deficits in these performance components is what we call them then the sooner hopefully you can remedy them and the better chance you have of maximizing your potential as a human being and having a meaningful life and an independent life.

Debi Lynes (03:40): Less it would have positive impact if the earlier the intervention is. So we’re speaking to be about babies with occupational therapists, I think. No, I think it’s really, I think it’s really interesting with occupational therapy cause I think it is one of those special days that people really don’t know what it means. You’ve got three teenagers. What would occupational therapy look like for adolescents?

Shelby Basciano (04:02): It could be in a number of different components. I’m going to tell you, if you’re an occupational therapist, you can work in a psychosocial setting.

Debi Lynes (04:14): What does that mean?

Shelby Basciano (04:14): Uh, you know, say a kid is physically appropriate for their age. You’re 15 years old and you’re, you know, you can walk and talk and run and you can do all kinds of things. Your fine motor skills are great. Your handwriting is great. But you’re impulsive in school or you can’t sit still or you have a really hard time processing with the fluorescent lights and the teacher talking and all the things that are going on around you. And OT could come in in a school setting. It’s required by law that they have access to this in public schools.

Debi Lynes (04:53): I didn’t know that.

Shelby Basciano (04:53): Yeah. It doesn’t mean that we have great access all the time, but we do. And you would get an evaluation by an OT and they would, you know, maybe they would say, wow, we have some sensory processing disorders going on here. And a lot of times there’s some easy solutions that maybe seem really simple that the kids can use. I mean, you’ve seen the little cubes, the fidget cubes, you know, that that was really derived from an OT thing so that your, your focus is here and maybe you need pressure in your appropriate receptive, which is your touch. And maybe that’s going to help you to be able to focus and read a book.

Debi Lynes (05:38): That makes sense.

Shelby Basciano (05:39): Some kids, you know, they need a test read to them because visually they have a hard time tracking. I mean, a lot of this stuff, again, if we had addressed it earlier, you may have had a better result by high school, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not a candidate.

Debi Lynes (05:54): I thought the fluorescent were interesting too. I oftentimes see when I go to movies now that there is a warning that if you have seizure disorder or any kind of sensitivity to light, that the flashing light may trigger or cause something which I think is pretty interesting.

Shelby Basciano (06:15): Yeah. Right. It is really interesting and that people are more conscientious. The public is more aware of people that have, I don’t want to say a limitation, but you have something that people are being a little bit more accommodating I guess is what it is.

Debi Lynes (06:30): Exactly, Okay. So now let’s talk about the aging as we get a little bit older. It’s funny cause I’m 66 and I’m noticing now from activities of daily living areas that I’m not a sharp end. I mean I’m not.

Shelby Basciano (06:44): Toileting, I’m just kidding.

Debi Lynes (06:46): Toileting. No, I’m still pretty good at tinkling and toilet is good. But when it comes to things like night the dark, right. I’m much more prone now to put a nightlight and I’m at 66 and nightlight in. I never have had one before.

Shelby Basciano (07:03): Right. Totally a thing and occupational therapists would, if you did a home visit, you would look, and you know what I’m going to say it here in Hilton Head, one thing that I noticed, and again, let me reiterate, I am now a personal trainer and I use all of my skills and I coach, I use them, but I don’t work as an OT anymore. But the thing with a home of L people are very um.

Debi Lynes (07:29): Skeptical to have you here.

Shelby Basciano (07:31): Know, they’re very attached to their decor. So if I tell them, Hey, you got to move a throw rug because it’s a tripping hazard in the middle of the night or because you have a walker now and it’s catching and it’s a high-risk safety risk for fall, they don’t like to take it off. But you know, I will say, you know, you can get better and then, and then maybe we can put them back down. But those are things that I would look from just a, a home of value perspective. Somebody comes home with a walker, you know, they got a new replacement or maybe even a stroke and they’re, you know, move things out of the way. Sometimes with a stroke you are not as aware of your, for instance, your left side, you, you kind of, because of where it happened in the brain, you’re, you’re kind of disregarding that left side. So you tend to run into things so, you know, maybe making a clearer pathway in your household. Another thing that I think is very simple, which would have to do with the aging too, is think about what your priorities are. If you have something that happens to you, whether you’re well or not, you know, if doing your hair wears you out for the whole day because you’re deconditioned, for example, have somebody do your hair. I mean, if you have the access.

Debi Lynes (08:49): I hear what you’re saying.

Shelby Basciano (08:51): Again, if I take it a step in the direction of being a little more having a result from a stroke or something like that. Sure. You know, my father in law, for example, I want somebody to come in and help me. If I have three hours a week of assistance, I want them to do the bathing and the dressing with him because one, it gives him more dignity.

Debi Lynes (09:15): More the physical stuff.

Shelby Basciano (09:17): Yeah. And it wears him out if he tries to do it on his own. I mean, of course, everybody would love to be independent in all facets of activities of daily living. But let’s pick and choose in the beginning, especially what’s important to me and the caregiver or the caregiver has to be part of.

Debi Lynes (09:32): Well, it’s really interesting. I know when my mom was ill, it the, we had someone come in and talk with us exactly an OT talking exactly about what you’re talking about. And she was like, basically, Debi, you all are here for emotional support. You need to get people who know what they’re doing to come in for physical support. And that’s a lot of what you’re talking about and what we’re talking about now, what we’re going to do, shall we, it’s where do I take a quick break? Again, we’re talking about aging in place. But the fun part I think is talking about it for any stage in life. We’ve already talked about babies. I mean, what do you do with one-year-old? You know, what do you do with a teenager? I oftentimes wonder, I had a kid who broke his arm and it was amazing how limited when Brandon broke his arm, how limited he was with activities of daily living, he could barely wash his own hair and I never even thought about it. And then we’re talking about as we get older, so we’ll be right back again here with Shelby Basciano stay with us here on aging in place.

Debi Lynes (10:34): Hi, I’m Dr. Debi Lynes. Design elements are psychologically and physically supportive and conducive to health and wellness. To learn more about what Lynes on Design can do for you, for more information on certified aging in place, and facilitative and supportive design, look for us at lynesondesign.com. That’s L-Y-N-E-S on design dot com.

Debi Lynes (11:00): We are back here on the Aging in Place Podcast for any stage in life. My friend Shelby Basciano who is an occupational therapist. She says she doesn’t do occupational therapy now. She’s a coach and a personal trainer, but can I be really clear? You do occupational therapy with every single treatment intervention and exercise and coaching stuff that you do. And I think that’s part of why you’re here today because for me, you have a much more holistic approach to everything that you do. In other words, I just don’t feel like I’m working a bicep. I feel like I’m kind of contributing to my quality of life.

Shelby Basciano (11:36): Yes. I think that is, I mean, hopefully that’s what I bring to my clients and I really, I think it’s important to look at the whole person and I’m getting in shape another part of occupational therapy. And this would be relate more to the psychosocial aspect that we talked about. I mentioned impulsivity before, might be something you would work on, but also goal setting on goals. You know, what I think is important for you may not be what you think is important for you. So that wouldn’t be a good goal. Whatever I’m coming up with, I have to have it meaningful to you. It has to be measurable. We have to be able to break it down into smaller pieces. So all of this information we can take and apply it to anybody at any age. You know, somebody who’s got dementia. Let’s, what part do we need to work on, you know, let’s goal set. what’s your goal to keep them safe in the house, make sure that they don’t, when they’re in the wandering stage, for example, they’re not going out. And when you go in the water, you know.

Debi Lynes (12:42): When you take a client, what are some of the questions that you do? Ask them as it relates to all of these kinds of things. In other words, if someone comes to you and says, look I’m in a different stage of my life right now. I need to make some changes and adapt and let’s say I may, I am, I’m not an OT client right now. I’m sort of the holistic client. What are you asking that specifically?

Shelby Basciano (13:07): It’s funny you’re asking, cause this has been like an influx recently for me with a few women. I have a, I have I’ll I’m going to be 50 this year. So what I was training like at 20 and 30, it’s completely different. I have a different mindset about it. Not that I, I think that what I was doing was bad necessarily, but I don’t want to do the things that I did before. And I have a lot of women that come to me.

Debi Lynes (13:33): Priorities and goals.

Shelby Basciano (13:34): We talk about priorities and goals and they sometimes can’t. It’s hard for them to articulate it. But then when I sit and say, what’s your goal? And instead of being like, I’m going to lose the last three pounds that I gained there. Like I want to feel better. I want to wake up. I don’t want to feel bad in my body when I wear heels, you know, I don’t want to not be able to walk for three days or.

Debi Lynes (14:00): Well for me at 66, I want to feel strong.

Shelby Basciano (14:02): Right and feel strong and that is definitely a priority for a lot of, I mean, women and men both, but a lot of women and they just, they want to feel more at peace. And I think that the crazy aerobics, insane, bouncy, kill it, you know, kind of mentality, right. We kind of changed that as we get a little older and that I’m not for everybody and it doesn’t work for everybody, but a lot of the people you know, and they, and they maybe don’t think yoga is the right thing for them. So I’m mixing in a little bit of all the disciplines that I’m trained in. And of course, I’m always using OT. We’ll break it down and say, Hey, this week I want you to focus on drinking your water. And that’s it. That’s all you’re going to do. And then mentally, everybody can maybe add into the week. And then next week we’re going to, I’m going to give you four core exercises that you’re going to do every single day that are going to make you feel better after a week. I mean, I don’t think anybody’s ever done them and said, yeah, you’re, you know, you’re wrong. I don’t feel any better.

Debi Lynes (15:08): Do you look at people’s, not just fitness levels, but health I guess health and wellness, when you do begin to strategize or come up with a program for them, do you look at their health and wellness like you do.

Shelby Basciano (15:22): Of course and I look at their activities and what do you want to do? Where, where are you going? Are you still working? Okay. Do you need to have the energy for work? Are you do you travel a lot? Are you caring for an elderly parent? All of these things, you know, really have to have to have a part in whatever the workout plan is. What’s your realistic idea of how much time you can actually spend? And don’t, don’t tell me something that you think I want to hear, like six days a week. They look at me like, is that the right answer? I’m like, hell no. I mean, I go for, I try to get 40 hours a week and I teach three days a week. So you know, I understand and having kids and you’re got a lot of things on your plate. I think you have to really.

Debi Lynes (16:08): Focus. I know I’ve got that. I’ve got a question as my mind is going, my hands are moving too. Like Shelby, I have another question. At any age do you focus on cardio? Is it about strength? Is it now as I’ve gotten older, balance, balance, balance. I find that I’m, I really want to pay more attention to that. Is it, are those things that are important.

Shelby Basciano (16:33): Balance in, you mean, actual physical balance? Like not falling or balance in your life?

Debi Lynes (16:37): Oh, good question. She is good I was actually thinking physical balance.

Shelby Basciano (16:42): Yeah. And say balance. You know, it’s like a little bit, it’s like swimming. If you don’t swim, you don’t get better at swimming. If you don’t, you know, when people say, Oh, I’m not good at yoga, I’m not flexible. Well you haven’t really moved out of the chair in about 15 years or you sit at your desk and you’re always in one position. So I don’t really think I hate, I really don’t like it when people say, Oh, I’m not good at something cause I’m like, well have you tried it? Have you done it? You know, it’s like when the kids say, Oh I don’t like that. You’re like, well try, you did it one time but I do, you have to look at the whole picture and you know what, to relate back to, one of the questions you asked me before my biggest, the way that I can tell somebody who’s improving because I ask a lot of questions in the beginning about if they have a pain. And most people who come to me, I’m going to be honest, they either have a neck thing, they’re like, I just try everything and nothing’s worse. Everything hurts me. And it’s really, I’m getting really depressed because I used to do classes five days a week or whatever. So I, I asked him, okay, when does it hurt? When I get real, I try to get as detailed, Oh well you know what? I was thinking the other day and I say, text me anytime of night. You’re not going to wake me up. Text me when you realize like, Oh when I get up off the couch or when I go to put my arm in my coat, I tell them just text me cause those are the moments in your life. And I write those things down and we work for one to two weeks or whatever we decide and then I go back and I look at those notes and often what’ll happen when something remedies with your body, you’re like, Oh my gosh, I forgot that that was hurting me so badly that it was affecting my ability to put my coat on. So in that is the way that I tried to make it meaningful to them because often I just take, I often, I try to get a quote from them early on or I was only sleeping three hours a night and they’re like, well I don’t know, am I, I don’t know if I’m really improving that much cause you know, you do kind of plateaued. And then I’m like, well do you remember when you came in a month ago and you said you’re only sleeping three hours a month. So those are the things.

Debi Lynes (18:52): Like you said, that are measurable. You set a goal you try to measure it. Well, what’s really interesting about what you’re talking about to me right now is these are activities of daily living that you’re talking about being able to put on your coat without pain. You know, am I slouched over a computer all day? Is that probably the source of my stiffness, soreness, pain, ache.

Shelby Basciano (19:20): Poor posture.

Debi Lynes (19:20): Poor Posture. Yeah. There you go. With your poor posture. Yeah. Shake posture at any age.

Shelby Basciano (19:26): At any age. And as you age, I mean, gravity’s working on us all the time. So let’s fight it a little bit.

Debi Lynes (19:36): Can you give us a sneak? We’ve got 30 seconds or about one minute in our second segment. What looks a posture? Pick her up or for us.

Shelby Basciano (19:44): I use a lot of cuing. I’m going to say one thing. Okay. Imagine somebody put ice down your back. Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh. So you’re sitting at your desk. Somebody put on my back. I mean, hopefully everybody out there listening just sat up and it makes you realize, Oh wow, I was really slashed over even I was doing it.

Debi Lynes (20:06): Okay. I stand your back. Okay, that’s a good one.

Shelby Basciano (20:09): Now my next one I stole from the people from Carla the hairdresser uncross your legs. You really crossing your legs, throws your hips off. And if you’re sitting in a fixed position all the time, you, you really, I mean, I know that’s the polite thing to do ladies from 1950, but let’s, let’s put our feet just flat on the floor and try to sit maybe a little forward on your but bones. Those bones on your sit bones yet. Yup. Okay. So there’s a little.

Debi Lynes (20:41): Are you guys doing this cause I’m doing it cause I like being able to do these things right as we’re sitting. It’s really interesting alright Shelby we were going to take a quick break. Isn’t this fun? You guys are getting all the cool tips. I love this. All right, stay with us. We’ll be right back here on aging in place.

Henrik de Gyor (20:55): For more podcast episodes, links, information and media inquiries. Please visit our website at aginginplacepodcast.com as we transition through life with the comfort and ease you deserve, discover how you can create a home that will adapt to you as you journey through life and the changes it will bring. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as our host Debi Lynes and her expert guests discuss relevant topics to creating a home for all decades in life. Don’t miss our weekly episodes of Aging in Place Podcast for every stage in life.

Debi Lynes (21:33): We are back here on aging in place. Shelby Basciano has joined us. She’s an occupational therapist, a coach and also a personal trainer and she is superior. One of the reasons I love her is she trains people at different ages and different stages in their life. So you’re, you kind of run the gamut. I thought it might be fun since we’re actually sitting in my home office right now doing this podcast to actually walk you through my house. And what makes it interesting for me is I’ve got nine grandchildren’s, I’ve got a lot of little kids and I’ve got my father who’s 91 here also. So there’s a huge multigenerational spread in ages. So, and it’s funny, the reason we’re doing this quite frankly, is when she came in, she saw about four different things I needed to change right off the bat. So I figured we’ll just yeah, right. Well just call me out on it cause I think if I’ve got it, somebody else does too. So we walked in, it was raining, I had a towel at the front door.

Shelby Basciano (22:29): Right. Okay. Wait, let’s start. I’m going to get out of the car. Oh gosh. Okay. I’m getting out of the car. And it’s gravelly. It’s, you know, so again, some of these things I’m saying, I know that people don’t have tons of money to go repave their driveway. That is not what I’m suggesting at all. But pull in, make sure there’s a spot saved where your dad has enough space to open the door. There isn’t any blockade, for example, because he uses a walker. Correct. Right. So, and also, you have to have a caregiver coming in and help him get out. Walking walking, walking, making sure there’s a smooth path or a clear path that he can approach the house. Then you have steps. Again, a ramp is really nice when you can swing it, but a lot of times people, I mean, one, you can’t swing it. And I, I gotta tell you, you can talk to your husband if you look at the building codes is to build an appropriate ramp. I mean, it’s going to take up your whole front yard, probably Hilton Hilton will decline the permit or whatever cause it doesn’t look pretty enough. So you’re gonna just make sure you have a clear pathway. You’re not going to have a lot of potted plants in the way, for example. Or you know, make sure if you can possibly, whenever there’s stairs, have handrails.

Debi Lynes (23:46): Okay, brilliant. Yep.

Shelby Basciano (23:49):Yep. And also, like for example, I have a handrail on the left side of my steps going up into my house, but my father-in-law stroke has affected his left side and he doesn’t really have a use of it. So I’ll see him reaching over with his right hand, which is highly unsafe, right. So we’re like, okay, well we need to add a handrail on the other side. I mean, even item, sometimes the steps are dark in a stairwell. You might want to, if you have those little lights [for each step], relatively inexpensive.

Debi Lynes (24:20): They are like 12 dollars.

Shelby Basciano (24:20): Right. And some of them are motion-sensitive so they can just turn on when you need them.

Debi Lynes (24:26): That’s actually a really good idea.

Shelby Basciano (24:27): Right you come home from nighttime, even all of us can use it, trip up the service sometimes. And I haven’t even had a glass of wine. So you know, like you, it’s dark. You’re like tired from the day. So handrails. Now we’re walking in your house, you threw the towel down. I get it. I have a dog so I always have like a towel to wipe their feet after they run in the yard too. Right. That’s pretty dangerous. You can trip and fall again for somebody with, you know, without any kind of impairment or anything. We’re probably not, you know, changing everything.

Debi Lynes (25:04): Although I laugh when you say that because my dad’s less likely to slip on that cause he’s so aware of it. But the kids Clementine, my little two year old went sliding on it the other day. So I think it is funny how you don’t pay attention. You don’t know what you don’t know. and now all at once from doing the podcast. I feel like, can I way find this way is the lighting right? You know, I noticed not just what I’m doing but what the kids are doing and what my dad still gets really interesting. Okay. So we’re in, we take a left into my kitchen area.

Shelby Basciano (25:38): Yes okay. If you are having issues with strength, upper body strength or you have one arm that’s only working or for example, I have a lady who’s like, I know how bad I’ve gotten, not coming to you for the last month because of holidays, etcetera. She was traveling. I can’t pick up my Pyrex, you know, she has some nested, okay, so what we do is yeah, don’t nest them or only put the one that you use and a lower shelf. Those are just simple. I know it sounds like it’s ‘dumb simple’, but…

Debi Lynes (26:12): It’s not dumb simple.

Shelby Basciano (26:13): You know. If you use something and it’s like, well it goes on the top shelf. Well, it doesn’t have to go on the top. Let’s just reassess. Okay. Stuck on a date, accommodate. Make sure you have a clear working area. You also, you know, as a designer, you know like the triangle, right? Is that what it’s called? You know, make sure that you have.

Debi Lynes (26:38): Have an accessible workspace.

Shelby Basciano (26:39): Right, Accessible workspace. And if you need to, if your’e standing endurance is limited, bring a chair in. I as a trainer would say, Hey, let’s try to build that up. But if we’re being realistic and you’re going to get tired and you’re going to become a fall risk because your legs are fatigued, then let’s bring a chair in and you can sit and peel potatoes or.

Debi Lynes (27:00):

Do you ever do that with people go in and do a home visit and sort of walk and look at their limitations and, and make recommendations?

Shelby Basciano (27:09): Within the scope of my training. I mean, I just do it.

Debi Lynes (27:12): All now for your client.

Shelby Basciano (27:13): And I’m there training and I say, you know what? If I was you, I would get the wheels off of the desk chair because when you sit down, that chair is going to fly out and you’re not very stable right now anyway. So things like that. I will, I do. I mean, I can’t not do it. I don’t, I can’t not see it. When we, my, my kids and my husband and I took a cruise for the holidays, sitting and watching people, everybody likes to, people watch, I love it. I’m like, Oh, what’s wrong? He’s got like he, he supinates on his right side. But you know, like I’m always kind of analyzing and looking and I wonder what happened or you know, I’m looking at their back. So it is kind of a natural thing for me to do. But as a yes, a thing I would say, you know, get your PT or your OT you can get a prescription for an evaluation from your doctor and a home evaluation is really important.

Debi Lynes (28:07): I think a home evaluation that’s the best takeaway. Get a prescription for that. And let me tell you again, we’re sitting here in my office and as a therapist I have an office that I try to make really comfortable. I noticed the other day I had a couple in here and they weren’t particularly old. They were, you know, my age, little bit younger and they’re rocking chairs and the man really struggled to get out perfectly healthy. But I go ahead. Yeah, look at you and I with our hands.

Shelby Basciano (28:42): And the height of the chair. Right? So like if you have low chairs, like some people have modern like really sharp looking houses but you know like you go to sit down and you know you have something right and you’re like Oh my gosh we’re going to get off. But so living room you’re looking at the chair, make sure the coffee table isn’t right in the middle of the pathway to walk. Little kids, I mean we know if you’ve had kids.

Debi Lynes (29:08): Sharp end.

Shelby Basciano (29:10): Sharp edges. At my house, my nephew got the glue. You know they used to do stitches but now he had to get his forehead glued cause he hit the edge of the table.

Debi Lynes (29:22): Yeah, the glass table. And again with Clementine, it’s funny with Clementine and dad I put the chairs around the corners cause they both inevitably go to that one glass edge corner and hit themselves. I never even thought, I mean in talking about I do it intuitively, but in thinking about it from a safety and an aging in place point of view. It’s actually makes a lot of sense now that we’re talking about height of things. I wonder if a bed is an issue getting in and out of.

Shelby Basciano (29:48): Of 1000%. There’s people who either had the really high beds, which is difficult to get up in, in, and then the really low, you know, the platform beds are kind of popular now. So that can be an issue as well because they, you know, a lot of them don’t need the box spring anymore. So it makes it even lower. It’s just a mattress on the bunky boards or whatever they call them.

Debi Lynes (30:10): Is there a right way to get out of bed? Correct way to get out of bed. I mean, is it more of a rule or, you know, again, I find my dad, I’m struggling to kind of sit up to get out as opposed to if he rolls to his side and.

Shelby Basciano (30:22): I used to have patients that would say, I just can’t, I just hook something to ceiling where I pull up, you know, and they would want to do, they used to have this thing called a trapeze in your hospital bed and you would lift yourself up. But we realized that really that’s not, I’m encouraging you to improve your strength or anything. So really, I mean for somebody who doesn’t have any issues, get out of bed anyway you want to. But otherwise, I want you to roll on your side. I want you to slide your bottom leg and then your left leg. Use your hand to push yourself up. You know, just slow everything down. It’s just taking the time. I mean we know watch kids like when they’re, you’re like just slow down slow down. You know what I mean?

Debi Lynes (31:04): I love it. You know what’s fun about this? I really want to have you back again cause I think it would be fun to even talk about if heaven forbid you fall, what would you do? I think it would be interesting to kind of do a, a podcast or a program on some actual treatments that we can do. So.

Shelby Basciano (31:20): Can I give you one little hint and I’m sorry I spoke over you. Um. I was not a fan of the Apple watch, but you know that if you fall, it has an in a capability where it senses if you fall. And I think it’s such a great tool because so many people don’t want to get the medical alert. They feel like it’s a, yeah, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. And you’re like, Oh, making fun. Like then you feel like you’re old. I think.

Debi Lynes (31:46): Right exactly.

Shelby Basciano (31:46): Look at it. If you can make that work.

Debi Lynes (31:50): Oh geez. I tell you what you are.

Shelby Basciano (31:52): And I’m not getting paid by Apple.

Debi Lynes (31:54): Well, I hope we are. So there you go. That would be a great thing.

Shelby Basciano (31:57): We would if they want some sponsor.

Debi Lynes (31:59): Exactly exactly, Shelby thank you so much. We’ve learned a lot. Thank you all for joining us here on aging in place for any stage in life.

Shelby Basciano (32:08): My professional name that my business cards have is Shelby Sharp that’s my maiden name. It’s just easier to remember than Basciano although legally I’m Basciano. I work at a beach city fitness and Hilton Head Island. And if you have any questions or you’re interested, you can contact me at ShelbyBasciano@gmail.com or hit me up on the website or Instagram and I’ll get back with you.

Debi Lynes (32:46): I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, Tracy. Tracy is naturally curious and always creative. And when we were doing the Aging in Place Podcast, she said there are so many quick tips that I can think of offhand. My response, who knew she’s going to be with us every week, giving us a quick tip and to hint that is a practical application.

Tracy Snelling (33:16): Thanks Debi. Unless you’re being arrested, don’t raise your arms when it comes to aging in place. Remember your home is about functionality and safety everyday use or things you use frequently, especially in the kitchen. Need to be within easy reach. You have countertops for a reason. You may have just had a shoulder surgery or you have a six-year-old who wants a treat after school. You may even have your aging senior just wanting a cup of coffee. Putting things in easy reach will make things easier on all for the aging senior I watch over and for the most part is my research assistant to see if my who knew tips work every week. I placed these coffee cups in a drawer instead of a cabinet. The cups are the right height where they’re easily pulled out from the drawer. And another hint exactly how many coffee cups does a senior really need? Three. the answer is three. The less you store above your head, the less chance of having an accident. Who knew that raising your arms should just be for exercise and not reaching for your cereal bowl.

Debi Lynes (34:25): Probably one of the most fun things I do during this podcast is listening for the takeaways. This is no exception. Talking to Shelby today was a blast for me and I got a lot of practical tips, but the takeaway I want to share with you, the one that resonated with me the most is this: Ask your doctor for a prescription for an occupational therapist to come and do a home visit and a walkthrough. Wow. What a great way to learn some tips for health, wellness, and safety. Thank you all for joining us this week on aging in place for any stage in life.

Henrik de Gyor (35:03): Aging in Place Podcast is hosted by Debi Lynes and produced by Henrik de Gyor. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to debi@aginginplacepodcast.com. we would love to hear from you if you’re interested in advertising or sponsoring this podcast, email us that pr@aginginplacepodcast.com. Thank you for listening to Aging in Place Podcast.

13. Randy Hunter

March 13, 2020April 16, 2020 ~ Henrik de Gyor ~ Leave a comment

Dr. Debi Lynes interviews Randy Hunter about your home safety for any stage in life

(Duration: 33 minutes)

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Lynes on Design

Takeaways

Check your smoke alarms. And don’t ever hesitate to call 911. Better to be safe than sorry.

Transcript

Debi Lynes (00:03): Hi and welcome to Aging in Place for every stage in life. What if you could visit or have a home that would accommodate anyone at any age, any physical ability at any time? How cool would that be? That’s what we’re doing here at Aging in Place. Why me? Because I’m a doctor of psychology and I specialize in physical spaces in health and wellness. Also, I love designing with intent at any age. Why now? Because we the baby boomers want to age in place gracefully and we want our families around us as much as we can and why you the audience? Because we want you to experience what it’s like to have a home that’s safe, aesthetically pleasing, and that you can live in at any age with any ability at any time. I’d like to introduce you now to Aging in Place Podcast for every stage in life. Hi and welcome to Aging in Place for any stage in life. I am here with Randy Hunter. He is a firefighter and I am thrilled to talk with you. Today we’re going to talk about all kinds of safety, but before we get started, Oh, you grandfather of a six-month-old. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do now.

Randy Hunter (01:24): So I’ve been in the fire service for 26 years now. I started off as a volunteer rod on the coattails with my dad in a small world department in South Western Pennsylvania.

Debi Lynes (01:36): Oh did you, okay.

Randy Hunter (01:36): So just about an hour South of Pittsburgh. And I knew I wanted to be a firefighter forever since a little kid. Joined the Marine Corps, was a firefighter for the Marine Corps and crash fire rescue. I did that for a short period of time. I got out. I was fortunate enough to get hired in Morgantown, West Virginia, where I spent 10 years as a firefighter there, which is pretty close to where I grew up. So it was a nice working, I just got tired of the winters at times, you know what I mean? So I came down here on vacation one year.

Debi Lynes (02:04): And here is Hilton Head [Island], South Carolina.

Randy Hunter (02:06): Absolutely yes. And here’s the Hilton Head. And I’m loved being down here. I applied for a job with the Bluffton Township Fire District, July 31st of 2008 and I was hired August 7th of 2008 and moved August 9th.

Debi Lynes (02:22): Well, tell me what your role is down here now.

Randy Hunter (02:25): So I was with the training division for the last 11 years. I’ve been recently reassigned to community risk reduction

Debi Lynes (02:31): What is that mean “community risk reduction”?

Randy Hunter (02:33): Well, I mean it is just what it says. We’re here re reducing the risk in the community. But many years ago where I shop until just recently, it’s always been known as fire prevention and that’s what the fire promise that we’ve been there to prevent fires. And we realize now that our overall goal is to reduce any kind of danger to our community, to our citizens. So it’s not community risks. So that goes anywhere from, you know, fire safety to our hurricane to trigger treating, making sure that people have the proper costumes on a barbecue, grilling fireworks, even though we’re not supposed to use them down here in South Carolina killers. Yeah. But that’s what we realize now that we have an ultimate goal of trying to protect our community.

Debi Lynes (03:13): It does seem like the overarching role of the fire department now is just really broad and generalized. I mean, you’re here today talking about Aging in Place and I think the fun part for me is talking about safety in and around your home is what we’re going to focus on today. And even though the podcast is Aging in Place, we’re talking about any stage in life. And that’s what you said when I said, when I said that you had the best comment.

Randy Hunter (03:38): Yeah, we have program. We did, we shouldn’t be looking at it. I don’t exactly know how it’s, I wish I could remember what I said earlier, because I believe.

Debi Lynes (03:44): No that’s exactly what you said.

Randy Hunter (03:44): But we need to be, we have programs from you know, small children to very elderly people. We look at all these different aspects of what they need to learn. Captain Lee Levesque, he’s great at public education. He’s also in the community risk reduction and he is out in schools all the time. Even when he meets with kids all the time about, you know, fire safety don’t be afraid of firefighters. But now we’re broadening that to where we’re going around talking about like we’re going to talk about today, slips and falls and how to talk, how to protect yourself around the home. But I think that’s what makes it so this position now is so interesting is because we are literally out there and when we go places it doesn’t take very long for someone to find out, Oh you at the fire farm. I have a question for you. And then there they are asking this question and how to make things better.

Debi Lynes (04:32): Well, let me ask you a question about how to position this. Initially I was going, do we position this with, again, let’s talk about little kids in the home to older kids or is it better to do sort of a tour of a home, let’s say for you. In other words, when you pull in to a, you get a call, what would be one of the first safety issues going to that call?

Randy Hunter (04:58): When you look at us coming in to some or you know, other organizations maybe like up in Fairfax, Virginia, for example, they have codes that say that you’re building, if it’s a commercial structure, the numbers had to be such and such size. They gotta be contrast. And it’s the same thing for our residents. We want to make sure that when the fire apparatus or EMS or police pull up in front of your house, that it’s clearly marked that what your dresses, you know I knew I put in here, I saw the one.

Debi Lynes (05:24): Right.

Randy Hunter (05:24): Yeah. If it was nighttime, that one outside here is a little bit difficult to see and we just want to make sure that it’s visible.

Debi Lynes (05:31): So you said contrast. What does that mean?

Randy Hunter (05:33): Like if you have a white house, do you want black letters.

Debi Lynes (05:35): Oh, got it.

Randy Hunter (05:36): Yeah. So pretty simple. You know, we just, I didn’t know, maybe I didn’t explain it. He shaking his head, she’s laughing. So maybe, but you want to make sure that if you stand in a road that your house is easily identified from the road when the apparatus in the front boom. They know exactly where they’re at. It

Debi Lynes (05:52): Was funny that you’re talking about that contrast. We had someone talking about new appliances and some of the appliances are actually paying attention to the contrast between the let’s say on the stove between being able to read it with a bigger font and then color contrast so that people can actually see it more clearly and easily. Right. I mean, it was pretty interesting.

Randy Hunter (06:13): And I think no matter what we’re doing. I mean, I just taught a class for fire instructors. We’re talking about making PowerPoints and it’s gonna be contrast, you know what I mean? Just you gotta make it, everything’s gotta be visible. Plant number what we want. We are very visual people and didn’t want to see, know what we’re looking at.

Debi Lynes (06:27): So when you drive in, walk again walking into a home, what do you think of when you think of safety? What are you looking for?

Randy Hunter (06:35): Well I’ve coming from the fire department, our main thing is we hope that every house has working smoke detectors. That’s, you know, captain leave in the back when he’s out there. That’s his smoke detector. Smoke the type of smoke detectors. That’s what you know, we want to see every home have a smoke detector.

Debi Lynes (06:50): How many were, how often do we check them and why? Smoke detector.

Randy Hunter (06:54): Oh well. So after I said repeat it, smoke alarms, it’s allowing us to that they’re smoking house, what we recommend it. So before we get into fall, we want to make sure that, because this can lead down a whole rabbit hole of a thousand different things. So if we want to stick to certain things, we might not want to go down smoke detector or smoke alarms, but we’ll get down a little bit. So what we recommend in houses now, we recommend that people sleep with their bedroom door closed.

Debi Lynes (07:17): Oh.

Randy Hunter (07:17): It’s practically pretty amazing. A fire in a hallway. How much did that door will stop and protect this bedroom? This room right here, for example. Now it’s easy for me to preach that, but I don’t practice that because we have animals and we are not going to lock, my wife’s locked the cats out of the bedroom. Okay. So what we say is if you’ll sleep with, you know, you should have one in the bedroom with your door shut.

Debi Lynes (07:38): In the bedroom.

Randy Hunter (07:38): Yup and then one outside the bedroom cause it’s bad because if a fire starts in here and that door’s closed, you want the smoke alarm to detect it inside this room.

Debi Lynes (07:46): Good point.

Randy Hunter (07:46): If the door’s closed, you want one outside that way for something in the hallway that the smoke is detected out there as well.

Debi Lynes (07:55): Is there a rule of thumb for how many smoke detectors you can have? And I know on Hilton head this house was built in 58 and it’s considered a really old house. But in Pennsylvania and other places relatively.

Randy Hunter (08:06): Well. And you know in Bluffton, yeah, this is [a, I mean ]I’m not saying, but.

Debi Lynes (08:09): It’s an old house, yeah.

Randy Hunter (08:09): A lot of the new smoke alarms are hardwired into them with a battery backup and those batteries are coming based on building code. But what they recommend is, and you kind of caught me off guard with this, but we’re rolling one per bedroom and then they want one outside per floor. Yup.

Debi Lynes (08:28): Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Randy Hunter (08:29): And where you don’t want a smoke alarm is in your kitchen, whatever. Butter stove. I mean, that’s, you know, I know it’s a joke with the kids about it because even when you’re talking to kids, you make them laugh. And I’m like, well, my wife thinks that’s the foods. But you know, you gotta think about them. We had a hotel built in Morgantown and they installed all the smoke alone right next to the showers. So if someone would have a hot shower, I’m going to open up the shower door. It says the larva every single time. So they had to go back and re on it, you know, and install these, reinstall them. Sometimes people just don’t know, thinking they think smoke, they don’t think

Debi Lynes (09:05): Exactly. What about carbon monoxide? I hear more and more about that.

Randy Hunter (09:10): Very, very important, especially is your house well, well, here’s what we recommend it. My house for example, is all electric. Right? So I have less of a chance from getting carbon monoxide. It doesn’t mean I don’t need one cause it’s amazing. We had a call the other day, A gentleman went in and put into his garage and has a car with a push button, push the button, thought it turned off, got out, was my somewhere else in a car, kept running. So if you wouldn’t have had a carbon monoxide alarm in his house, then he would’ve been in trouble.

Debi Lynes (09:42): Who would have ever thought that? We’re going to have to take a quick break.

Randy Hunter (09:44): Absolutely.

Debi Lynes (09:44): We’re going to come right back. We have a lot more to talk about here with safety and fire and all of those good things. We’re here again with Randy Hunter on the Aging in Place Podcast. Hi, I’m Dr. Debi Lynes. Design elements are psychologically and physically supportive and conducive to health and wellness. To learn more about what lines on design can do for you for more information on certified Aging in Place and facilitative and supportive design, look for us at lynesondesign.com. That’s L-YN-E-S on design dot com.

Debi Lynes (10:22): We are back here on Aging in Place. We are here with Randy Hunter and we are talking about safety. We’re getting ready to talk about your personal favorite thing.

Randy Hunter (10:31): Slips and falls.

Debi Lynes (10:32): Slips and falls at any age, but you said it’s one of the things you deal with older people all the time. Probably your biggest call.

Randy Hunter (10:40): Yeah, a lot of times, you know, I think when we, as we get older, a lot of people don’t want to admit that they need some help. Are they going to have to look? I bought gloves or gloves. I bought glasses the other day and I really was, I pride myself on never needing glasses and all of a sudden I’m like, I buy new glasses. So we look at things like this. I think some of our, the community, we really want to say, look, it’s okay if you start to have a little bit of issues with getting around. We just want to make it safer for you. Everyone wants to live independently. So when we started talking about slips and falls, we want to make sure that you can go around the house and they can kind of look at our home and say, you know what? This is a potential trip hazard. If you have hardwood floors like in here and you have loose rugs, loose rugs are going to make people slip and fall. It’s kind of simple. So we go around and we look and make sure we can move those things around and we don’t want them around anyways.

Debi Lynes (11:29): So wait a minute, you will come in and walk my house with me?

Randy Hunter (11:32): We can absolutely.

Debi Lynes (11:33): Because that would be amazing. I’ve got a one-year-old grandchild, my 91-year-old dad who’s here. It would be so helpful because I think oftentimes I see my house so often, I don’t pay attention. So what, so what are some of the things you said loose rugs that makes sense.

Randy Hunter (11:48): Loose rugs, you want to make sure. So as we get, then you can use this to, for someone to say someone breaks a leg. Okay. And so it’s not just always looking at the elderly. We’re looking at things that are going to make that person get through that house easier. So open concept, make sure that they have an open area to walk there. They’re not going to be bumping into things. I don’t know how many times I get up in the middle of the night and you know, you do something, you pump in, I’ve got a new watch and I don’t know, it feels like it’s 4,000 times bigger. I bump it on every door, you know? But those are things that we look at as we’re going through. Do we have a lamp in a certain area where you really want in here, but the cord sticks out, you know?

Restrooms, excuse me. Restrooms. You know, when you go in and you’re getting in and out of the showers, slips and falls. We should have rubber [matt], you know, some grippy things on the bottom of the shower, the tub, handrails, you know, I mean, those are the little things that we would love to come in. And you know, not necessarily tell people what they need but make those recommendations.

Debi Lynes (12:44): Well, I think that’s what I mean, Aging in Place. I think I would love to have it at any age. I’d love to have somebody come in and share with me areas that were safe and areas that probably could use a little a safety update if you want.

Randy Hunter (12:57): Absolutely. And 90% actually probably 100% of fire departments in our nation. If someone was to call their local fire department, they would be able to come out and do a walkthrough and we do home inspections for fire. We can do home inspectors for safety. When it comes to residents, it’s one of the things where we don’t go around and really, Hey, can we come in? Can we come in here? Because that’s not really that a man’s home is his castle, for example. So that’s all. We can’t really enforce far coats.

Debi Lynes (13:22): But if we could invite you.

Randy Hunter (13:23): Absolutely 100% we will encourage it you know.

Debi Lynes (13:26): When you get calls, do you find that most of the time the slips and falls or in the bathroom or where? Bedroom, bathroom.

Randy Hunter (13:34): We [man] I don’t have those exact numbers, but bathroom, bedroom, that’s where two main.

Debi Lynes (13:39): Oh is it really?

Randy Hunter (13:39): Yeah. And a lot of times someone gets into a, maybe goes to the restroom or something and getting up and saying down based on how they are still have anything to hold onto. So all of a sudden, you know, lowering down, they kind of lose grip. They don’t, some people don’t like that cold floor, so they put that rug there. So now we have two things. Now we’re trying to study ourselves, but then our rug slips out and then all of a sudden they fall down. You know, talking about that again, not trying to get too far off the track here, then stay in and eventually hit a certain point.

Debi Lynes (14:07): I don’t know it’s kind of fun getting off track. It’s really interesting.

Randy Hunter (14:10): But we have, we got to make sure when someone slips and falls we need to make sure that, that we’re checking on our neighbors. Okay making sure that we know our neighbors and make sure you have somewhere to call. If someone falls down, let’s say I fought on the floor and just can’t get up, it actually after so long it actually becomes pre dangerous for them. Yeah, Because the way they lay their it depending on, it can be a very serious health risk. So what we recommend is obviously having some way maybe.

Debi Lynes (14:37): Communicate.

Randy Hunter (14:37): To communicate or just know your neighbors and say, Hey, you know, I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith in a while. My wife and I did it the other day. We are a neighbor of ours who we see summer front porch and day in and day out had a little sticky note on his door from a package delivery and my wife combined and she’s like, man, you know, I dunno, so-and-so’s huh. We’ve got packages such been there the next day. It was still in there. So we called our, his, one of his good friends. Do you know where [inaudible] is? And they’re like, Oh yeah, he’s been in Vegas for a month. And we’re like, Ooh, but we, but we pay attention to our neighbors and what they’re kind of doing now because we’re nosy. We’re friendly. Maybe a little nosy too, but you want to know. But you know, if you haven’t seen someone stop in just checking them. You know, everybody wants to see that. And it’s good being a neighbor too.

Debi Lynes (15:27): Do you teach people how to get up if they fall? Do you talk to people about it? Like you come in and someone’s slipped or fallen on the floor and you’re like, Ooh, cause I know because my dad lives with me at 91 that’s, you know that a six foot tall gentleman that weighs 195 pounds, who falls is dead weight.

Randy Hunter (15:47): Oh that’s [an, and ]it is very tough for me to go out, but that’s why when we go, we send the whole engine company because we are going to have three guys and girls to help pick somebody up. Now, the other reason too is if someone falls down, we are going to go and make sure that they’re just not getting need back in a chair. So that makes sense. So make sure they’re not hurt. We’re going to kind of, Hey, you know, and as our firefighters render and they are looking for those types of things, Hey Mr. Smith, we noticed you found this rug again today. Maybe we can just go ahead and take this rug up for you or you know, along those lines. Because but our firefighters are trained to always be vigilant of being able to help.

Debi Lynes (16:23): In other words, not just looking at what’s presenting, but sort of the periphery, what’s going on. Do you find that you enjoy the education and prevention piece of all this? In other words, going in, if you could have seen that rug and had been invited in to kind of take a walkthrough,

Randy Hunter (16:38): Oh, I love doing, I love doing the critical community risk reduction. You know, as a young firefighter, I wanted to go fight fires, which I still do. I still love doing that stuff. I don’t do it anymore. I want the trucks now, but I absolutely 100% love coming and doing something like this. Being able to educate our community. We go into our local retirement community here. I went in the other day and taught a CPR class, the security that runs a committee that oversees the community. But when I was in there, all of the residents saw my department vehicle saw me in uniform and had a thousand questions about everything and I could have sat there all day and talk to him just because I enjoy interacting with the community and to being able to help.

Debi Lynes (17:16): What kind of questions did you find that they were asking you? Which I think is really interesting.

Randy Hunter (17:21): Well, right now a [lot of question] we’re getting is smoke alarms and changing batteries. And when can we help them replace their smoke detectors. So we do a program where we can go out, we’ll help change batteries, but we’re looking for someone that’s not physically. Again, we’re looking at someone from their home by themselves that can’t physically get up on a ladder. So we’ll go out and help and change her batteries. Help replace your smoke alarms. Again, the fire services, one of the things awesome about who we’re talking about. It’s a broad scope, but someone calls us. We never tell them no. You know I mean we have a policy that says we don’t rescue cats out of trees anymore. But sure enough, if someone calls and says, my cat’s in a tree, guess what? We’re going to send an engine company over there and a truck company and they’re going to do what they can. They get that cow tree because we’re the fire department does not tell anybody. No. And we get called for maybe an elderly lady to them by herself or colors overflowing. She does nine one, one. There’s no one else a sense of fire-prone. It’s going to go, but luckily we’re going to go shut the water off. And more than likely we have a plumber or somebody is handy on the engine and they’re like, well, wait a second man. Let’s go ahead, here’s your problem. And they see another fix the problem. And you kind of hear stories about that all through the fire service. And I think that’s one of the things that drives people to be a firefighter.

Debi Lynes (18:37): Oh, I think it’s amazing. I want to talk about two things. I know we have to take a quick break here in just a minute. I’d like to talk about electrical wiring.

Randy Hunter (18:44): Okay.

Debi Lynes (18:44): And just because that for some reason that spooks me a little bit.

Randy Hunter (18:48): Me too.

Debi Lynes (18:48): Right. And then I’d love to talk about fire hazards in the house rooms so they are most likely. I guess my assumption is a kitchen, but let’s talk briefly if we can about electrical wiring.

Randy Hunter (19:04): Right now?

Debi Lynes (19:04): Sure.

Randy Hunter (19:04): Okay. So, well first off, there’s three things that I’m afraid of. Spiders, snakes, electricity, and not mastering any of those three snakes. I’m going a little better with. So if anyone has any questions at all about electricity, first of all, they need to look and see if it’s something with wiring, get a professional, don’t look at it. But when we’re looking to extension cords, we don’t want to overload outlets. We don’t want to have those. You know, my wife actually come home the other day and she’s like, Hey, I bought an extension cord for our new lamp. I’m like, no, we’re not putting [inaudible]. I mean only because it’s a $3 extension cord. It’s not will it catch fire? You never know, but you don’t want to take the chance. You want to get something that’s actually, you know, you want to get an outlet plug directly into the outlet. Those extension cords get really hot, especially if they’re kinked.

Debi Lynes (19:52): That was the point of having an extension cord was to not do that.

Randy Hunter (19:56): Well they have some that are rated better than others and you’re going to have to look on, they have a UL slip on and everything, but those are things. Ideally, you want to use a surge protector and they make them at all lengths. Now that way, if something happens in that quarter is short, it’s going to cut the power and not continue to do it. That’s one of the main things that we want to look at.

Debi Lynes (20:13): We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to come back and we’re still going to talk about electricity because you’re afraid of it and we can’t talk about dividers or snakes and we’ll go back to that. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.

Henrik de Gyor (20:23): For more podcast episodes, links, information and media inquiries, please visit our website at aginginplacepodcast.com as we transition through life with the comfort and ease you deserve, discover how you can create a home that will adapt to you as you journey through life and the changes it will bring. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as our host Debi Lynes and her expert guests discuss relevant topics to creating a home for all decades in life. Don’t miss our weekly episodes of Aging in Place. Podcast for every stage in life.

Debi Lynes (21:00): We are back here on Aging in Place. We’re talking to Randy Hunter. We’re talking about electricity in your home. And I would think around the holidays and probably 4th of July are pretty sketchy and dangerous when it comes to house fires on electricity.

Randy Hunter (21:19): Well, especially at Christmas, we have all the what’s called Rizwan say, you know, he’s an expert interior illumination or however, but he look at this stuff and people do, they’re going to run a long extension cords during the holidays and we just got to make sure that we’re, the main thing with learning chords is getting a chord that’s actually rated for what you’re looking. I just purchased myself a surge protector that’s extra long for that reason because our surge protectors are normally that long. You don’t reach my needs your side about a longer one so that if something does happen, it actually has a switch. It’ll [self Oh].

Debi Lynes (21:55): Turn off.

Randy Hunter (21:55): It’ll, yeah,

Debi Lynes (21:57): So if I get a surge protector, I can put my $3 extension cord in it [and then.]

Randy Hunter (22:04): No, I mean the idea would be in theory it should protect it so that that $3 extension cord shorts out the surge protectors should stop that. But the idea would be like my surge protector, I bought a six foot one that kind of extends backwards and no one can see it. And we can plug our lamps into it.

Debi Lynes (22:22): What’s so funny, when we do the podcast at the end, we do takeaways and the takeaway from this is already do not buy a $3. I mean, I didn’t know that. I thought

Randy Hunter (22:31): A lot of people don’t, and I’m not going to, don’t get me wrong, if you look at my garage, there’s probably a $3 corn hanging up there. We try and do the best we can as firefighters to really represent and do practice what we preach. But every once in a while you get somewhere where you just really want that lamp to turn on and all of a sudden. But the idea is that we don’t want to be, we want to try to avoid something like that.

Debi Lynes (22:52): What is the biggest cause of fires in homes in general?

Randy Hunter (22:55): [ are between] cooking and heating. That’s the two biggest fires, right or causes of fires right there. Now actually in the low country here we have a lot of lightning strikes and a summertime we run a ton of lightning strikes. It’s just because of the Pines and all that stuff here. But a lot of our nationwide heating and cooking fires seem to be the main cause of home fires.

Debi Lynes (23:19): What about dryers?

Randy Hunter (23:19): While dryers, the main thing that it causes fires and dryers is going to be the vents being cleaned out, making sure.

Debi Lynes (23:26): What vents being cleaned out?

Randy Hunter (23:28): Yeah you know where the lint traps are or anything like that. You’re a clean nose notice I’m asking where all your podcast, we’re going to turn the ties now. But yeah, so that heats up in there and then when that air can’t flow as it restricts it, then it can’t do what it needs. It doesn’t operate properly and it catches fire. So, you know, when you look at your overall, and like I said, we can talk for four months on safety, but when you’re looking at, you want to follow the manufacturer’s instruction, do you want to stay Virgin on keeping things maintained, clean watching for slips and fall, you know, so there’s a ton of stuff that can be done.

Debi Lynes (24:08): I’ll tell you what scares me the most for myself is you’re gonna flip it is I have a tendency of popping popcorn or doing something and getting distracted. And I’ve burned pot on the stove, which is really embarrassing because I, you know, you don’t think that that’s the deal.

Randy Hunter (24:22): So things happen like that. We were cooking and one time w you know, a lot of people have done that. Again, you get attached track. We were cooking one time at the house and we had a wooden cooking cutting board and I was doing something and needed to counter space and set it off. We have a flat top stove. The stove didn’t even think anything about it. My wife’s like, something’s burning and I didn’t realize that the burners were on and I sitting around on top of the burners. And so people do make mistakes. You know, the idea is that w we all are human. We’re going to do that, but to try and prevent those as much as possible. Now I would not want to come to your house if you were cooking in some, yeah, it’s on the stove.

Debi Lynes (24:59): That would not be good.

Randy Hunter (24:59): You know, but that’s something that we can, you know, again, just trying to stay vigilant.

Debi Lynes (25:05): We had a situation, I, and I would be curious as to how you would handle this. We were in the kitchen about a year ago. You would love this. We were in the kitchen about a year ago and I had was having a meeting and I, and I looked and there were literally swear to you flame shooting out of my dishwasher, my dishwasher.

Randy Hunter (25:23): What was on fire?

Debi Lynes (25:23): The[ top panel. It had been.] I had someone out to fix it the day before and I guess something just so I went to my laundry room and I got my fire extinguisher that was dated 1987 and I went, Ooh, I’m scared to touch it because of all the spider webs. And now that I’ve touched it, I don’t know what to do with it. And the reason I bring that up is fire extinguishers. I mean, it was, there were flames. I, you know, I think you’re going to be wise in what you’re doing, how you handle these situations.

Randy Hunter (25:57): Yeah, absolutely. And you know, so all of these things we’re talking about, you can find them through the nfta.org the national fire protection association. Look, your local fire department, whatever it may be. But like I said, there’s so much stuff we could talk about how a fire extinguisher, make sure it’s dated, make sure you know where it’s at.

Debi Lynes (26:14): Make sure you know how to use?

Randy Hunter (26:16): Yeah, we go into a lot of businesses and everyone’s all excited being, Oh man, we have an AED. And I’m like, Oh, that’s great. Where is it?

Debi Lynes (26:25): And an add for the people.

Randy Hunter (26:26): Oh, an automatic external defibrillator, which is great. They have one, but sometimes other employees don’t know where it’s at, you know? So these safety tips can go into your home, into your place of employment. If you go to a restaurant, there’s are things that just be vigilant and know, you know, what you can do to be safe.

Debi Lynes (26:42): And again, fire extinguishers I think are intuitive to you. You don’t even think about them. But I think too many of us, and I, it’s funny because my kids have no idea and I mean they’re adults, they’re young adults, but I think that they’ve just always been used to growing up with them but not really ever see them.

Randy Hunter (26:58): Yeah. And I, and that’s the way the fire service is going out with the community risk reduction. A lot of our programs, you know, 10 years ago were strictly based a kid stopped op roll, don’t play with fire, whatever it may be. Now we’re realizing that we do have older kids, adolescents and young adults that don’t know how to operate a fire extinguisher. So we, you know, we try to encourage them to come out and learn CPR, first aid, just you name it. We try and educate people in it with the star, anything.

Debi Lynes (27:28): It’s amazing. So people can call no matter where you are in the US or our standards or codes. Pretty, pretty much the same. In other words, are firefighters all trained in CPR?

Randy Hunter (27:39): No. Well, yes, that’s there. I want to say how to say it. So broad question. Yes. All firefighters are trained a certain level of medical. Some fire departments are just the very basic of first aid or what they call an emergency first responder. Then we have EMT, EMT advanced, paramedics, and then we even have some…

Debi Lynes (27:59): Like paramedics who are a helicopter pilot.

Randy Hunter (28:01): Yeah. We have flight medics and stuff like that actually to a part-time. So when we have all that stuff, so we are trained in all that. All firefighters are trained in basic fire prevention. Like we know how they give you come to our youngest firefighter and say, Hey, I would like to have a, can you tell me he’s a fire extinguisher? They shouldn’t be able to because that’s in recruit school, they’re required to do some pub[lic] ed[ucation] during recruit school. But yes, 90%. And if they don’t know the answer to it, they know exactly where to go and help you find it.

Debi Lynes (28:26): And you know, we’ve only got a couple of minutes to go, but before we go, I think I’d be remiss in not asking what is an emergency when something happens. How do I know when to actually call nine one one? I think that’s, there’s a big misconception.

Randy Hunter (28:41): Well, my biggest thing is don’t ever, if you have to question it, call number one. We would rather come to your house, come to your place of employment and the canceled en route or get, they’re like, Oh, everything’s okay. As opposed to sitting in the station and like, you know, they called us 10 minutes earlier, so don’t ever, if you have to question whether or not it’s an emergency AppSumo herbs and call nine one one.

Debi Lynes (29:02): Is, it really is the way, whether it’s, whether it’s physical fire.

Randy Hunter (29:08): Yeah. Well, because an emergency to me may not be an emergency to you and vice versa. So I’m not going to sit here and dictate, but I will, if somebody feels that they need help, we never, ever want them to discourage them from calling nine one one. We want them to call, have us come out, have law enforcement, EMS, whoever, come out, assess the situation and we’d rather go back home and making sure you’re safe as opposed to not being calling them out.

Debi Lynes (29:31): Then on that note, what information do I need to be armed with to help you expedite this and that you can do your job and can be more efficient with the information,

Randy Hunter (29:43): Current current location, what their problem is, where it calling from. And with cell phones nowadays, we need to make sure that when the dispatcher answered the phone that you tell them where you’re actually calling from. Sometimes like the fuss gallon, maybe not a great sample. It may actually, it may go the fussy Island right now as a Hilton head dispatch. [inaudible] May ping on you for counting. So where are you calling from.

Debi Lynes (30:06): And so that means no matter where we are in the US, that same situation.

Randy Hunter (30:10): They could have asked you. 100%.

Debi Lynes (30:10): Do you find that people don’t know where they’re calling sure on?

Randy Hunter (30:14): Oh, absolutely. We have a lot of students are down here. We have a lot of tourists. Hey, I see a lot of, there’s a house on fire where I’m not sure where, but I think it’s I it all, I’m on [Route] 278 and I see dark black smoke somewhere down there, so we got send an apparatus [a fire engine] to try and pinpoint where this, you know, and people don’t usually stay where they’re at.

Debi Lynes (30:33): I tell you what, the more we talked, the more questions I have, I can think of outside and gardening and all kinds of questions. Will you come back and talk to us?

Randy Hunter (30:41): Oh actually I love this, please.

Debi Lynes (30:41): Randy, thank you so much. We want to thank all of you for joining us here on aging in place for any stage in life. I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, Tracy. Tracy is naturally curious and always creative and when we were doing the Aging in Place Podcast, she said there are so many quick tips that I can think of offhand. My response, who knew she’s going to be with us every week, giving us a quick tip and to hint that is a practical application.

Tracy Snelling (31:17): Thanks Debi. Love thy neighbor. They come in handy one day. If you’re friends with your neighbors, the ones right next door, or even just a few houses down, come up with a system that lets them know you’re okay. I used to watch over an elderly woman who lived alone and I had her call me every morning at 8:00 AM and she let my phone ring twice. That way it doesn’t disturb what I’m doing. And if she didn’t call me by 8:15 AM, I would call her to make sure she was okay. Also, she would turn on her porch light every night. So without disturbing her, I knew always well when I did my drive by and her neighbors kept a watchful eye for the light too and they had my phone number just in case. So devise a plan. Let your neighbors know that you’re good at baking or shopping for cookies, at least for an exchange for a watchful eye. Who knew your safety could be right next door.

Debi Lynes (32:15): Randy, what an amazing interview today and talk about a takeaway. Here’s the bottom line. Please, please, please check your smoke alarms. And don’t ever hesitate to call 911. Better to be safe than sorry. Thank you all for joining us here on aging in place for any stage in life.

Henrik de Gyor (32:36): Aging in Place Podcast is hosted by Debi Lynes and produced by Henrik de Gyor. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to debi@aginginplacepodcast.com we would love to hear from you if you’re interested in advertising or sponsoring this podcast, email us that pr@aginginplacepodcast.com

Thank you for listening to Aging in Place Podcast.

12. Natalie Lucas

March 6, 2020April 16, 2020 ~ Henrik de Gyor ~ Leave a comment

Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Natalie Lucas of Optimal Hearing about your sense of hearing at any stage in life

(duration: 31 minutes 18 seconds)

Natalie Lucas

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Optimal Hearing

how technology has changed what it’s like to be deaf

Takeaways

Do not neglect your hearing. It is one of the most important things you can do for your health and wellness.

Transcript

Debi Lynes (00:03): Hi and welcome to aging in place for every stage in life. What if you could visit or have a home that would accommodate anyone at any age, any physical ability at any time? How cool would that be? That’s what we’re doing here at aging in place. Why me? Because I’m a doctor of psychology and I specialize in physical spaces in health and wellness. Also, I love designing with intent at any age. Why now? Because we the baby boomers want to age in place gracefully and we want our families around us as much as we can and why you the audience? Because we want you to experience what it’s like to have a home that’s safe, aesthetically pleasing and that you can live in at any age with any ability at any time. I’d like to introduce you now to Aging in Place Podcast for every stage in life.

Debi Lynes (01:04): Hi and welcome to Aging in Place Podcast for any stage in life. I am here with my friend Natalie Lucas and we’re talking about optimal hearing. Yes, I am thrilled to talk to her. She and I have actually done TV together. Right. So this is going to be fun. We’re going to have to use our….

Natalie Lucas (01:20): New senses.

Debi Lynes (01:21): Our senses of listening today.

Debi Lynes (01:24): Challenging me today.

Debi Lynes (01:25): Exact, this is your area of expertise. You know, what I’d really like to start is a little bit about your background cause it’s pretty fun and exciting and how you got into this area from television production.

Natalie Lucas (01:38): Right. I was a TV producer for almost 20 years with a major news organization and was part of a mass layoff. So for me it was a midlife crisis, right on cue. I was 40 years old and I was going, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I went to see a life coach just completely blindly this kind of seek out some information. The one thing I knew I didn’t want to do was stay in television news.

Debi Lynes (02:15): Okay. Wise woman.

Natalie Lucas (02:18): Correct. And I’m thankful every day. And so I was, went to a life coach and was learning that I wanted to do something that was more fulfilling, more satisfying to my heart and soul. I wanted to grow up people.

Debi Lynes (02:33): To grow up with your values.

Natalie Lucas (02:33): Right, right and wanted to, I wanted to help people and have a little bit more connection to people and it made sense to do that with seniors just because when you look at what the millennials and the younger generations are doing, they’re maybe not quite as plugged in or active.

Debi Lynes (02:51): Did you initially have a lot of testing done? Did you have kind of inventories done to kind of gear where you were interested?

Natalie Lucas (02:59): I did some kind of personality testing along the way. If you’ve been out there long enough, somebody is going to get you with a personality test. Right. But um I did not do that in kind of an official capacity when I was searching. I just was kind of doing some soul searching, meeting with this life coach and talking it out and doing research along the way. It made sense to look into health-related fields.

Debi Lynes (03:23): Smart. That makes a lot of sense. Why hearing why, what do you think it was that interested you about that?

Natalie Lucas (03:29): I know exactly what it was. The way that I ended up with this company was that I was at an oyster roast and I got talking with the president of the company who was engaged to a friend of mine. So at just as, so many things happen, but being a producer, I went home and started researching it. The reason that I fell in love with hearing was because so much is unknown still about how we hear, how we process language, how important hearing is to the brain. And so that kind of peaked my intellectual curiosities as I started digging. And how important hearing is, but how disregarded it’s been doctors, the medical community, people just kind of let their hearing go and don’t treat it.

Debi Lynes (04:15): Well think about it when, when I think about hearing, I think the biggest shock I had, and you don’t know what you don’t know, you don’t think about it. When I went in for my own hearing test, hearing analysis, and then was told, you know, you’re not, you’re 60 and you really don’t need them. But if you kind of get into it, you, it’s probably a good thing. You’re pretty close. You’re right on the cusp. And I was like, Oh great. You know will insurance pay for those? No. No. And I was like, what? No, no. And to me that signified that they’re a luxury item. And it was shocking to me because once I had hearing aids, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t and hadn’t heard until I had them. And, and now I can’t even imagine life without them.

Natalie Lucas (05:07): It’s funny to me just because I tend to believe we have known so little about how the brain works for so long that people kind of just disregarded hearing you dealt with hearing loss, it was expected to happen. It came with aging. But guess what? So does eyesight, your eyesight diminishes as you age. For the vast majority of people were taking eye tests. As kids, we’re having our eyes checked throughout our lives. When our eyesight starts diminishing. We go and get glasses.

Debi Lynes (05:38): So interesting.

Natalie Lucas (05:38): And ears, for some reason people would just say, huh, that’s expected. I don’t hear anymore. That’s baloney. I don’t, you know, that’s, that’s not cool to me.

Debi Lynes (05:49): So optimal hearing, tell me about the company itself.

Natalie Lucas (05:52): The company itself is a family-owned and operated company. They’ve in business since 1961. The patriarch of the family wore hearing aids and so he started going door to door in 1958 selling hearing aids, which if you can imagine what a 1958 hearing aid was. And his son took over the company I believe in the 80s. Okay. Three of his four children are our vice presidents and hearing loss runs through their family. So, so many of them wear hearing aids which makes them very service-oriented because as hearing aid wearers, they really know the other side of the coin too.

Debi Lynes (06:31): We’ll serve folks who haven’t worn hearing aids. These are not your great-grandmother’s hearing aids. And number one, these are, we were just laughing about this. These are in my words, soon to be fashion accessories because I mean mine does, has Bluetooth. It pretty much can do most anything. Talk to us about some of the newer styles or not so much styles but what, what hearing aids can and can’t do.

Natalie Lucas (06:53): You know these days and when you talk about fashion accessories. I fully believe one day they will be once upon a time and once upon a time you know, eyeglasses were big old round Coke bottle glasses and now snazzy and really cool glasses on. Now they’re just two-tone with the fade and people wear designer glasses. That’s going to happen with hearing aids I think. Because the younger generations are all growing up with pink and neon cords hanging from their ears, iPods, iPods and Bluetooth devices and AirPods AirPods stuff, stuff hanging from our ears all the time now. Um I’m constantly trying to talk my patients into getting red hearing aids or blue hearing aids. Why not? Exactly. I only have one, one woman who is hysterical, she got a red one and a blue one cause she’s a Patriots fan.

Debi Lynes (07:46): When I was getting on it, what’s the big choice? Do you go neutral or do you go to a Rose gold or whatever? And I’m thinking at that time I’m thinking to myself, really, I can’t see it. So I don’t really care.

Natalie Lucas (07:58): Everybody goes neutral, but I say go bold. You know? And I think as I think as the baby boomers start moving in and getting a little funky and the aging hippies I think, we’ll start seeing more bedazzled and designer hearing aids and colored hearing aids. Why not?

Natalie Lucas (08:14): All right. What age do you think people should, well, you’re going to tell me from the time you’re a little on out, right? How often and when should I begin to get hearing tests?

Natalie Lucas (08:22): I’m thrilled to see now that sometimes there are hearing screenings for kids in school. And that’s important. I mean, starting from a young age, it used to be people who had hearing loss sometimes would get up into their four or five, six, seven and not be diagnosed. And that doesn’t help anyone. But certainly I think as you get into your middle age peers, all those fun years, which I’m right in the middle of right now, when you get there, you know, you need to start just go find out, you know, get a baseline.

Debi Lynes (08:52): Do people know if, It you know how I F I think I was 58 and because I was a therapist I would be talking to my patients and a lot of them were teenagers and I found myself as the years went by, you know, that 18 inches of space I would get closer and closer and closer. You’re kind of bugging me, step back. And it was weak because I could not understand them. I felt like I could hear, I couldn’t understand and I didn’t realize there wasn’t much of a difference in that. We’re going to take a quick break. Yeah. We’re going to come back and can we talk a little bit about that again, hearing isn’t always the sound. Sometimes it’s the understanding.

Natalie Lucas (09:41): Very good reason why you felt that way.

Debi Lynes (09:43): Stay with us. We’ll be right back here on aging in place, the podcast.

Debi Lynes (09:48): Hi, I’m Dr. Debi Lynes. Design elements are psychologically and physically supportive and conducive to health and wellness. To learn more about what Lynes on Design can do for you, for more information on certified aging in place and facilitative and supportive design, look for us at lynesondesign.com. That’s L-Y-N-E-S on design dot com.

Debi Lynes (10:13): We are back here on Aging in Place Podcast for any stage in life. I am here with my friend Natalie Lucas, optimal hearing and we’re talking about hearing loss and it’s, it’s funny in the F in the previous segment I said when I first noticed anything, it wasn’t that I felt like I couldn’t hear. I felt like I couldn’t understand.

Natalie Lucas (10:31): If I had a dollar for every time somebody came into my office and said, I cheer just fine. It’s just that everybody mumbles.

Debi Lynes (10:39): That damn TV.

Natalie Lucas (10:40): A very wealthy woman. For the most part, when people start losing their hearing I say for the vast majority of cases, when people start losing their hearing, they start losing high frequencies first. And that’s because high frequencies are most exposed on the cochlea to sounds coming through the ear.

Debi Lynes (10:58): Okay, stop. Here’s now I love this. My favorite part, what I do A what is a cochlea? B What is high frequency?

Natalie Lucas (11:05): Okay, so cochlea is the inner ear. Okay. You have the external ear canal, your middle ear and your inner ear and the cochlea. And the inner ear is kind of the hearing organ, if you will. And High frequency. A dog whistle high pitch. Got it. High pitch. Okay. Okay. So in our language we have low-frequency sounds that are vows and hard consonants such as A – D – B. The volume of our words comes from all of those letters. And then we have high-frequency, non-voiced consonants. We don’t use vocal chords to make any of these sounds, so we can’t make them louder or softer. [k – t – p – h – sh – a] Oh yeah. So what happens is people start losing their high frequencies first for the middle of the ear. And when that happens, you’re hearing the root volume base of the word, but you’re missing those subtle nuances. And our language, those high-frequency non-voice continents help determine and distinguish and differentiate one word from another. So you’re losing the subtle nuances [k – t – p – h – sh – a]. It makes a word a word.

Debi Lynes (12:21): So typically would we, and I think I found myself looking at for work arounds, I would listen much more for context and content rather than individual words. But I again, I was so surprised at the difference when I actually had the opportunity to have a hearing device.

Natalie Lucas (12:44): People start, well, you know, we use a lot of tools to communicate. So when you’re experiencing hearing loss and it’s untreated, you’re relying on your brain to fill in information from context. You’re more focused at looking at faces, seeing lips, reading, kind of the full picture. And when hearing loss will most often highlight itself is in complex listening environments. If you’re in a noisy restaurant with a group of friends, if you’re watching TV with a lot of sound effects and background noise and flat screen speakers.

Debi Lynes (13:14): I also found that anytime I watched a foreign film or a film accent are so bad.

Natalie Lucas (13:20): They’re so difficult for people because you’re already experiencing some hearing loss and trying to lean on filling in the blanks and then with an accent that kind of handicaps you.

Debi Lynes (13:31): So talk to me about what hearing tests looked like in today’s world.

Natalie Lucas (13:34): A hearing test. If you go and get a good hearing test, they’re gonna want to find out about you, a case history, if you will. What’s going on, what situations are you having trouble, where do you think it came from? Do you have any ringing in your ears? Should be a good discussion up front about what’s going on. The hearing test itself is a combination of what we call pure tones that’s hearing tones or beats of different frequencies or pitches from low to medium to high and then their speech testing. And that’s testing how your brain is processing speech. So here is two fold your ears ability to get speech up to the brain and the brain’s ability to process it. So then you’ll do some speech testing and then you’ll end with some bone conduction and that’s actually presenting tones or pitches to your mastoid bone. And what we’re doing there is looking for what we would call a conductive element, some type of blockage in the middle ear or earwax or something that is helping us diagnose what type of hearing loss you have.

Debi Lynes (14:40): One of the most interesting things you said when you first came in was that hearing loss was linked to a lot of medical conditions. Is it more of a is hearing loss a, is there a correlation between that and let’s say heart disease or, or how does all this work?

Natalie Lucas (15:03): Well, you know, I laugh with my patients all the time. That old song when you were a kid, leg bones connected to this. Yes, we’re all interconnected. And so a lot of conditions are interconnected. When we speak of things like heart disease or diabetes, people with heart disease and diabetes have higher rates of hearing loss. And a lot of that has to do with circulation and blood supply to the inner ear. If you start constricting and limiting the blood flow to the inner ear is going to kill off the little hairs I for up to the brain. So a lot about that. So we see, particularly with diabetes, it’s a big indicator of possible hearing loss because people are, have reduced circulation and blood flow to the inner ear.

Debi Lynes (15:52): And talk to me about hearing loss and dementia because I know that as my mom’s hearing deteriorated, it seemed as though cognitively there was a, it got, she got worse and worse cognitive.

Natalie Lucas (16:08): Without a doubt. And major studies are now proving that that.

Debi Lynes (16:12): So dad, where are your hearing aids please. Please dad, where you’re hearing it’s please.

Natalie Lucas (16:19): So what we’re learning is that when people go with untreated hearing loss, what you’re doing is you’re disengaging, you’re withdrawing from society, from conversation, from people. You’re disengaging and you’re retreating within your own head. People get tired of asking people to repeat or they’re embarrassed by it. And so we all have been in tough times in your life, you’ve all kind of learned, I think most of us have learned somewhere along the way that the best place for you to be is not always inside your head.

Debi Lynes (16:53): No, isn’t that so true?

Natalie Lucas (16:53): And so, you know what hearing aids do is keep you engaged and keep you plugged in. But hearing is also stimulation fitness, if you will, for the brain. So it keeps your brain stimulated and healthy and fit and active. And they’re proving right now that early adoption of hearing aids and consistent wear of hearing aids will, in fact, ward off dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression, risk of falls. These are major studies coming out that are showing that no, just going along as is and saying, okay, I’m old. I don’t hear anymore. Well that’s not the way to go.

Debi Lynes (17:28): I found that and you and I have talked about this when we’ve just had our conversations. I found that exactly like my monovision or my contacts. If I, I just decided I needed them. It wasn’t like, Ooh, should I shouldn’t. I would have pain this, that or the other. And I remember the month I hear and tell me, is this true? Is there sort of a adaptation period where your, your body sort of recaptured?

Natalie Lucas (17:56): Absolutely. You’ve got to, you’ve takes people a really long time for the most part to lose their hearing unless there’s a traumatic event or a virus or something that takes their hearing. So you’ve spent all these years slowly diminishing your hearing and then we bring it back to you at all, all at once. That can be overwhelming for the brain saying, yeah, dishwasher big time.

Debi Lynes (18:17): My two year old [grandchild] wooh..

Natalie Lucas (18:20): It takes time to adapt. You’ve got to give it time to adapt and it’s no different than if you were to get glasses or contact lenses. Your brain needs time to adjust to a new reality.

Debi Lynes (18:28): Can we take a quick break again and come back and talk about sort of what is trending or what is on trend for hearing devices and where we are going with the future. And I’d also like to talk about how long hearing aids last. So stay with us. We’ll be right back here on aging in place.

Henrik de Gyor (18:48): For more podcast episodes, links, information and media inquiries, please visit our website at aginginplacepodcast.com as we transition through life with the comfort and ease you deserve, discover how you can create a home that will adapt to you as you journey through life and the changes it will bring. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as our host Debi Lynes and her expert guests discuss relevant topics to creating a home for all decades in life. Don’t miss our weekly episodes of Aging in Place Podcast for every stage in life.

Debi Lynes (19:25): We are back here on aging in place for any stage in life. Natalie and I are laughing and talking about hearing devices and glasses and I guess these are medical conditions. I’d like to know a little bit about what is on-trend. What you are seeing is new and improved in hearing devices and kind of where we’re going.

Natalie Lucas (19:42): Yes, you want them red and blue bold colors. Yo, I want put dazzled and styled. I want them to be accessorized fabulousness. Um.

Debi Lynes (19:55): I don’t know it, it’s an awful lot of competition with what the area needs.

Natalie Lucas (19:58): Maybe we can kind of coordinate them.

Debi Lynes (20:00): I’d be in for that. I’d be down for that.

Natalie Lucas (20:02): For the most part, the industry is all moving towards rechargeable using a lithium-ion battery and getting rid of the old hearing aid batteries. That’s problematic for a lot of people because fine motor skills and plus it’s the same old battery and lots of new technologies. So there’s hearing aids drain the batteries really fast, especially.

Debi Lynes (20:22): My dad has those with rechargeable. It drives me absolutely cuckoo because I feel like they spend more time on the recharge or then they do.

Debi Lynes (20:31): The original ones did and they’re improving on that. There are some rechargeable hearing aids out there now that have a 30-hour battery life, so you never have to worry about the first rechargeables would start dying on you every day at about dinnertime, right when you really need them. Right. So they’re improving on rechargeability moving. I think the whole industry will hopefully be there in five or so years. They’re everything is to pairing and connecting with a cell phone and Bluetooth capability, streaming, taking phone calls through your hearing aid.

Debi Lynes (21:01): You love that.

Natalie Lucas (21:02): Streaming music and books, books on tape. I have a patient who walks five miles every day and listens to her books on tape.

Debi Lynes (21:08): And I listened to my, whenever I’m out walking, I love the music through my hearing aid. It sounds great on the treadmill.

Natalie Lucas (21:14): They’re really fancy earbuds. And we’re, we’re getting more and more capable of doing more things with them beyond just hearing. There are some hearing aid manufacturers that are turning the hearing aids kind of into a Fitbit or an activity tracker or a fitness or health tracker, tracking your heartbeat, your heart rate, your steps can do all sorts of things there. I’m not sure how far that will go if that’s more of like a short term kind of testing the waters out. We’ve got so many devices that can do that. Our phones, our watches.

Debi Lynes (21:48): Are most hearing devices now. Mine go over the back of my ear and I think the microphone is back there, right? Correct. Are there different, I don’t want to say styles cause I’m not really interested in this style, but different kinds. I’ve seen some that are just go into the ear.

Natalie Lucas (22:04): Every hearing aid manufacturer is going to make a hearing aid that goes behind the ear and maybe a big one that goes behind the ear. We would call that a BTE. That’s for people who are severely or profoundly deaf, a lot of power. Then the general behind the ear one like what you have, what many many people have. Those tend to be the most comfortable to wear they can fit a variety of types of losses and because there’s more real estate, because the unit is behind your ear, you can put more features into them, but it’s also not suitable for everybody who maybe don’t have the fine motor skills to work the little wire into your ear.

Debi Lynes (22:43): Yeah I think that’s, that’s been a hard, now that it’s when she, it’s kind of like contacts like we talked about. Once you get used to putting them in and taking them out.

Natalie Lucas (22:52): You have to learn the shape of your ears. We’re all different and most people have never thought about the inside of their ears until they end up in a set of hearing aids.

Debi Lynes (22:59): And again, I always use my dad to talk about, but it has absolutely driven him nuts. Not to hearing aids per se, but getting him in and out.

Natalie Lucas (23:06): It can be hard. People who have really twisty, windy or narrow ears or prolapsed ears that can be very hard in those cases. And in cases where maybe people don’t have good motor skills or other needs, maybe they have dementia and Alzheimer’s and caregivers, we can look to a custom hearing aid and those are the kind that just fit in the ear. They can go from very, very tiny to filling up the whole ear. Um and with a custom, what we’re doing is it’s a closed fit. We’re blocking out everything, all of the natural sounds. So they tend to be better for people who have more severe or flat low loss, meaning they don’t have any good hearing to lean on.

Debi Lynes (23:47): Once you get a hearing device, do you tend to not lose any more hearing? How does or how does all that work there?

Natalie Lucas (23:54): Sensory neural hearing loss. It can be age-related presbycusis is what you call that. It can be genetic noise induced ototoxic medicines can cause it.

Debi Lynes (24:07): Like grateful dead end days.

Natalie Lucas (24:09): Exactly the Rolling Stones somebody the other day said as she thought her hearing loss stem from Bon Jovi, it can be ototoxic medicines and said sort of certain medicines that doctors prescribed to fix one thing and damage your hearing. Things like chemotherapy and radiation. So there’s so many internal and external variables. There’s no way to predict.

Debi Lynes (24:32): Is there an ear device hearing device hygiene that we need to know about or even eat ear hygiene that would be preventative or helpful?

Natalie Lucas (24:45): Not really, I’m sometimes amazed, you know, you should check on the cleanliness of your ears every once in awhile. That’s not a bad thing to do. You don’t.

Debi Lynes (24:58): There some people produce more wax than others.

Natalie Lucas (25:00): Some people produce gobs and gobs a wax. Some people produce next to no wax earwax or cerumen as a glandular production. So it varies from person to person, but you do want to kind of check-in on, you know, are your ears clean? Every once in awhile I’ll come across people who are completely impacted from the outer of their ear all the way back to their eardrum with ear wax. And that is an ear wax induced hearing loss. They may have other hearing loss, but it will block your hearing. Earwax is nature’s perfect sunblock.

Debi Lynes (25:31): So you have a pair of hearing devices now, what is the recommended way to clean them? Is it easy? Is it hard? Do you need to? And then how often do we come back and visit and see you in optimal hearing?

Natalie Lucas (25:43): I see all of my patients every four months. Some don’t want to see me that much and they’ll push it out to six.

Debi Lynes (25:48): Right and other people will come every two years because they can.

Natalie Lucas (25:51): Right and then some come every couple of weeks just to say, Hey but it is important to keep people moving forward and to have somebody else hearing. Sometimes people don’t realize new hearing aids aren’t working well because the brain hears the hearing aid turn on. It tells them they’re working. So checking on vacuuming the microphones in fact.

Debi Lynes (26:13): Vacuuming the microphones.

Natalie Lucas (26:14): I have the world’s tiniest vacuum in my office.

Debi Lynes (26:16): Yeah, I am going there tomorrow.

Natalie Lucas (26:19): But in terms of keeping them clean, you want to brush them off. Okay. Things like pollen, skin cells, dandruff, all of these things can settle in the microphones and affect the performance. I always say we’re humans, so we’ve got a lot room alone.

Debi Lynes (26:34): Walking in the rain.

Natalie Lucas (26:35): Not bad. Most hearing aids are very, very water-resistant. I jump in the pool with them. I had a gentleman just recently swim about 10 laps before he realized you can get your hearing aids and Oh, take them out. If they get them wet and put them in a bowl of dried rice, just like you would your cell phone and it’s going to pull the moisture out of them. You can a lot of times save your hearing aids even if you’ve submerged them.

Debi Lynes (27:00): What do you see age span of a hearing device?

Natalie Lucas (27:04): Manufacturers, one is to say five years and that’s because we’re in a technology boom and keeping all of those old, outdated parts. I tend to tell people five to seven years. I have patients who come see me. I saw a woman today who was in hearing aids from 2012. They’re still working for her. We needed, she needs to stay in them. So we kept her in them and we take care of him for her.

Debi Lynes (27:28): Once you have your hearing devices, do you, is it like a car? Can you like turn them in and upgrade?

Natalie Lucas (27:33): No, for the most part they’re, they’re regulated as medical devices. So they and they are, they’re living in a 98-degree body. They’re kind of as no exchange program. I have helped people put them on a cell behind the ear style cause that’ll fit everyone. I have helped people sell those before in neighborhood flyers, eBay, you’ll see sometimes you’ll see them for sale.

Debi Lynes (28:03): Slightly used.

Natalie Lucas (28:03): Slightly used. Buyer beware. Of course, you want to make sure that they are good working hearing aids. But you can.

Debi Lynes (28:12): You have been amazing and super fun to talk to before we go. It’s shameless self-promotion time. Oh I need to call this that. So if you name after want hearing website where we can track you down. Miss Natalie.

Natalie Lucas (28:29): So my name is Natalie Lucas. www.optimalhearing.com. I have offices in Hilton Head and on Bluffton and you know, my favorite part of my job is taking care of people. I’m really big on education. A lot of times people are scared before they come and go find out what’s going on. Don’t be. Come see me and um you’ll learn a lot no matter what.

Debi Lynes (28:56): Thank you so much for joining us here on aging in place. Bye-bye.

Debi Lynes (29:01): I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, Tracy. Tracy is naturally curious and always creative. And when we were doing the Aging in Place Podcast, she said there are so many quick tips that I can think of offhand. My response, who knew she’s going to be with us every week, giving us a quick tip and to hint that is a practical application.

Tracy Snelling (29:29): Thanks Debbie. This next tip came from one of my friends who has a hearing disability. She’s in her twenties and she wears hearing aids. I thought this was such a great idea that I needed to share, even though I don’t have any hearing problems, I’m still doing this today. When Sarah is home, she remains barefooted or she wears socks. She removes her shoes at the door. Why? It’s not because of the dirt or the mud. It’s because of vibrations. She says she can feel the floor move. She feels the vibration of the door opening or closing. She feels the vibration of her dogs. Paul’s coming down the hall. She even feels the vibration when something is dropped, not even the room where she’s standing. Who knew? Well, Sarah did. I was raised in a barefoot at home shoes, first thing off and last thing on only because I’m a little bit country. I am now more aware of the vibrations of my own home and I’m also talented enough to pick up my ink pen with my toes when I drop it. I felt the vibration. Who knew?

Debi Lynes (30:36): Natalie Lucas, It was a lot of fun today to talk with you. At the end of every podcast, we have a takeaway and the takeaway today is this, do not neglect your hearing. It is one of the most important things you can do for your health and wellness. Thank you all for joining us this week on aging in place. Have a great one.

Henrik de Gyor (30:59): Aging in Place Podcast is hosted by Debi Lynes and produced by Henrik de Gyor. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to debi@aginginplacepodcast.com we would love to hear from you. If you’re interested in advertising or sponsoring this podcast, email us at pr@aginginplacepodcast.com. Thank you for listening to Aging in Place Podcast.

Category: Transcript

14. Shelby Basciano

Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Shelby Basciano about Occupational Therapy

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13. Randy Hunter

Dr. Debi Lynes interviews Randy Hunter about your home safety for any stage in life

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12. Natalie Lucas

Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Natalie Lucas of Optimal Hearing about your sense of hearing at any stage in life

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Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Shelby Basciano about Occupational Therapy

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Dr. Debi Lynes interviews Randy Hunter about your home safety for any stage in life

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Dr. Debi Lynes speaks with Natalie Lucas of Optimal Hearing about your sense of hearing at any stage in life

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