Heart Health

Learn the possible reasons why reducing saturated fat to improve heart health may not be working for you.

Our senior care experts in Santa Rosa, CA understand that it’s tough to make the right dietary choices when recommendations appear to constantly be changing. We’d been told that saturated fats from sources such as butter, red meat and fried food were detrimental and might affect a person’s odds of developing heart problems, but later research indicated there isn’t enough proof that people who gave up these delicacies improved their heart health – and so, we went back to our old ways due to the green light to select butter over margarine.

However, as reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists clarify that the lack of noticeable results in reducing fatty foods is more likely related to equally … Read More »

 Cindy and Jake of Hired Hands Sonoma
office recently attended Vineyard Commons Health Fair. Hired Hands Homecare had a table with health information and a 30 minute presentation on Super Foods was given by Cindy in the Commons Lounge.

Hired Hands also had a Super Foods gift basket to raffle for the residents there. It was a great event for the residents and was well attended.
Congrats to the winner of the gift basket!

If you have been diagnosed with heart disease or diabetes or simply high blood pressure, chances are your doctor has advised you to take weekly or daily blood pressure readings with a home blood pressure monitor. But how do we know these readings are accurate? And furthermore, what do those two numbers even mean?

For a quick definition, Harvard Health explains that the top number (systolic pressure) measures artery pressure at the instant the heart beats (when the heart contracts), while the bottom number (diastolic pressure) tracks the pressure between heartbeats (when the heart is resting). They also share the latest normal and high blood pressure guidelines from the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Among adults age 60 and older with high blood pressure, aim for a target blood pressure under 150/90
Among adults age 30 to 59 with high blood pressure, … Read More »

Nearly half of all Americans have one of the three key risk factors of heart disease: high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, and smoking. Too many people make poor lifestyle choices every day that negatively affect their heart. Poor diet, excessive alcohol intake, and physical inactivity are just a few things that can do permanent damage. It’s easy to forget to implement the basic ways to take care of our hearts, but it’s one of the most important things to remember. Go back to the basics and protect your heart with these tips provided by Hired Hands Homecare.

Avoid tobacco: If you smoke; quit. If someone in the household smokes, he or she should be encouraged to quit. It’s tough, but it’s tougher to recover from a heart attack or stroke or to live with chronic heart disease.

Be more active: Be … Read More »

We all know the story about the ugly duckling who turned out to be a beautiful swan. The obvious moral of that story is that some things, upon first glance, are not what they appear to be. It is with that story in mind that Hired Hands Homecare invites you to celebrate Women’s Heart Health Month with the “IF She Were a SWAN…” Challenge.

As with men, a woman’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain. But while some heart attacks are sudden and intense, most of them actually start slowly with mild discomfort. The National Institutes of Health notes that women often experience physical symptoms as long as a month or more before experiencing the actual heart attack. Additionally, women are somewhat more likely than men to experience and report some of the other less predictable symptoms. Use the … Read More »

When a loved-one experiences a heart attack or stroke, it seems logical to focus on a laundry list of steps that can be taken to ensure that the damaged heart heals and the person’s lifestyle choices that contributed to the heart attack are changed. Hired Hands Homecare receives calls from families throughout California, from Marin to Sonoma, requesting, as part of their in-home care, lists of actionable items – to-do lists for care and heart health. In a situation fraught with chaos, lists give caregivers a sense of control. They are the instruction manual for the caregivers’ new reality, helping them know what they should do to encourage healing and keep another heart attack from happening.

That information is available, and when combined with Hired Hands’ in-home care services, makes a tremendous difference in a patient’s outcome. However, there is another … Read More »