How to Make Great Tasting Food for the Senior Palate

Worried all the nutritional concerns that come with older age will turn you cooking bland? Cooking for a senior who’s even pickier than a toddler? Want to make tasty food that meets all your senior nutritional needs?

Good nutrition can be a great medicine, keeping us strong and active throughout our senior years. But as certain medical conditions start to creep in with old age, it might be recommended that you cut out certain foods you used to rely on for flavor in most of your dishes. 

But that doesn’t mean your new menu has to be bland or unappetizing! To make tasty food suitable for your nutritional needs, check-out our helpful guide to cooking for the senior palate:

• Replace bad fat, like saturated and trans fat, with the good, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in avocado and nuts. 
• Substitute pureed potato or cauliflower for cream in recipes likes soups and pastas for a creamy texture minus fat and calories.
• Take a class to get out of your cooking comfort zone and find some good ideas for meals you never considered before. 
• Include naturally sweet foods, depending on blood sugar needs, but avoid added sugars and sugar substitutes. 
• Cook softer meals like soups, stews, and braised meats for satisfying, complete, easy-to-eat meals. 
• Cut salt without losing flavor by adding fresh herbs, spices, onions, garlic, wine, or vinegars. 
• Incorporate healthy snacks and smoothies to supplement diet and add a nutritional boost. 
• Recreate comfort foods and other favorite dishes to entice anyone with a lack of appetite. 

With these tips, you’ll practically be a gourmet chef! Or at least you’ll be pleasing anyone you cook for and keeping them healthy, too. If you have more questions about cooking for seniors or hospice care in Ann Arbor give us a call today. At Hillside Terrace, our family shares life with yours. 

Combating Senior Isolation This Winter!

Want to help yourself or a loved one avoid isolation as winter approaches? Need help fighting winter isolation for a senior in your life? Want tips to help preventing winter isolation from experts in hospice care in Ann Arbor?

Past their sixties, the older a person becomes, the more likely they are to live alone. As mobility and other health concerns become more of an issue, living alone can lead to a greater risk of isolation. In winter this can be a particularly big issue when many seniors worry about slippery conditions and moving around in bulky clothing and visitors may be less likely to stop by.

To help you combat senior isolation this winter, we’ve put together a list of our top 7 tips to stay connected! 

1. Build a Network: It might be harder for family members to visit a senior in winter, so ask neighbors to check-in on them once week. You can also utilize other modes of communication, like phone calls or connecting online, to fend off isolation. Try putting a weekly call in your calendar to help you remember!
2. Keep Them Nourished: Nutrition is incredibly important when it comes to keeping seniors feeling their best, but meal prep and cooking can become a real challenge. Help seniors stay nourished by arranging meal or grocery delivery. You can take a big task off their to-do list and free up their time for socialization and activities. 
3. Get to Know Community Services: Make sure seniors are familiar with the local senior center, senior transportation options, and other senior services in the community. AAA can be a good resource for discovering and locating all that’s available in the community. 
4. Tackle Medical Concerns: Being proactive addressing health and medical conditions will help seniors feel more confident to get out or take visitors at home. Help out by making appointments for them, arranging for medical supplies to be delivered, and etc. 
5. Mobility Assistance: Keep encouraging and reminding seniors to use their aids like canes, walkers, hearing aids, glasses, etc. to keep them moving and engaging with others easily and safely.
6. Transportation: Offer and arrange rides to appointments and activities. You can use community senior transportation services, private services, or simply call a taxi!
7. Consider Assisted Living: A facility designed to keep seniors healthy, active, fulfilled may be the best bet to combat senior isolation and other concerns that become too much for family members to take on. 

With these strategies to combat isolation this winter, the senior you’re caring for should get through the season happily and confidently. If you have any questions about helping a senior through winter or other needs from assisted living to hospice care in Ann Arbor, give us a call today. At Hillside Terrace, our family shares life with yours. 

5 Hidden Costs of Family Caregiving

Are you finding it hard to make ends meet while caring for your loved one?

Caregiving can be a big expense. After all, assisted living communities can be quite expensive, so it must be cheaper to do it yourself, right?

Wrong!

Here are a few benefits you could be missing out on by being your family’s caregiver, according to A Place for Mom:

1. Lost wages- Caregivers frequently have to give up on their own career to take care of their loved one, missing out on an average $143,000 in lost wages.
2. Decreased employability- Caregivers find that it’s difficult to find a new job when their time as a caregiver ends.
3. Increased health care costs- Caregiving can take a toll on your physical and mental health.
4. Lost savings and retirement- Out-of-pocket expenses can really add up! The National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare found that a stunning 47% of working caregivers reported having used up all or most of their savings.
5. Reduced productivity- Caregiving not only effects the caregiver, but the economy too. MetLife found that American businesses lose an estimated $34 billion each year due to employees’ need to care for aging loved ones.

Get Started Today: Schedule a Tour!

We can help your family create peace of mind. When you’re at home you’ll know your loved one is taken care of and in good hands. Hillside Terrace – “Where our family shares life with your family!” Come see the difference we can make when your family shares life with our family. Schedule a tour of Hillside Terrace today– a facility for hospice care in Ann Arbor.

For more information about hospice care offered at Hillside Terrace, visit us at HillsideTerrace.net, or contact us here!