sustainable long-term care policies

Policy 1: Aging is in good physical and mental health

The incidence of some diseases may increase as we age, but despite that there are elderly people who enjoy better physical and psychological health and cognitive functions than some of the others. They are younger in age. 

Whatever your age, old or younger, it is still too early to change your lifestyle in a way that makes you age with good physical and mental health and good memory. Here are the most important tips that will help you: 

1: Exercises and Gaining Experience:

• physical exercises:

  It is known that physical exercise maintains your physical health and the most effective factor for aging for a longer period of good health, but you may not know that it also maintains your mental health, they reduce the loss of cognitive functions that occurs with age or even with diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or depression. 

• Senses exercises and experiences

  ● Eye training to notice objects in a background similar to them in color helps the brain to overcome the problem of hyperopia (difficulty focusing on close objects) common during age. 
  ● Musical training may also delay or reduce hearing loss and cognitive function loss during ageing. 

• Cognitive exercises and experiences

  ● Learning one or more languages ​​protects against decreased cognitive function as you age. 
  ● Solving puzzles, crossword puzzles, some electronic device applications, learning a new hobby, changing daily routines, and more maintains cognitive function. 

2: Healthy nutrition:

1. Determining the appropriate calories and reducing excess food while maintaining the essential elements reduces the aging of the brain, reducing the lack of cognitive and motor functions, as well as stabilizing the blood sugar at normal rates, in addition to reducing the incidence of tumors and cardiovascular diseases. 

2. Foods that contain Omega-3-Fatty Acids, Vitamin C and Vitamin E (Vitamins C & E), which act as antioxidants, slow down the rate of cognitive decline and the deterioration of Alzheimer's disease if it occurs. 

3: Reducing stress and enjoying life

● As human beings living in our societies, we face many pressures, which may increase with age. 
Chronic social pressures negatively affect the aging of the brain, negatively affecting mental health as well as cognitive functions, especially memory and learning. 

● Adapting to stress, and enjoying life by meditating, communicating, appreciating moments of happiness and attending them with all hearts, laughter, movement, and gratitude for everything that is good in our lives helps you reduce stress, enjoy life and adapt to social pressures. 

Develop a balanced exercise plan

Diversity of physical activities Increases your enjoyment of physical exercises, and improves your health more comprehensively, here are the most important four basic types of physical exercises to vary between them: 

First: Balance exercises: 

Ex: yoga and posture exercises 
Benefits: Improves balance, posture and quality of walking, and reduces the possibility and fear of falling. 

Second: Cardio exercises: 

Such as: walking, climbing stairs, swimming, hiking, biking, tennis and table tennis. 
Benefits: Reduces fatigue and shortness of breath, helping you with daily tasks such as walking and housework. 

Third: strength exercises: 

For example: using movement against resistance such as exercise equipment, lifting weights, stretching rubber bands, or even using body weight such as hanging or push-ups. 
Benefits: Preserves bones, helps build muscles, improves your balance and protects you from falls, increases your speed, helps you cross the street, and your reaction speed when slipping, speeds up adjusting your balance, and helps you with your daily activities that require strength such as opening jars, lifting things, riding and getting off from the car easily. 

Fourth: Flexibility exercises: 

Ex: stretching exercises and yoga. 
Its benefits: Flexibility in your body helps you make movements of a wider range, such as turning around while driving, tying your shoes, getting dressed, combing and washing your hair, and playing with your grandchildren with ease. 

Exercise safely:

• Consult your doctor before beginning any exercise regimen, especially if you already have health issues.
• If you have diabetes, for example, reschedule your treatment or meals.
• If you experience dizziness, difficulty breathing, pain or pressure in the chest, or body aches, stop exercising and call your doctor.
• If you notice redness, swelling, or tenderness in a joint, stop exercising.
• If you regularly experience pain or discomfort while exercising, reduce the duration and increase the frequency.
• Start slowly and build up, especially if you haven't exercised recently.
• If you are afraid of falling or have heart problems, you can start exercising while sitting in a chair and gradually increase.
• Prevent injury and discomfort by warming up, cooling down, and staying hydrated.
• Follow an exercise routine for a month to make it a habit.
• This is made easier by incorporating the above fun activities.
• Exercise with focus. Try to focus on your body's movement, your breathing, your foot on the ground, or your muscles moving. 

Supporting activity with a healthy diet:

Proper nutrition, like exercise, affects your energy, mood, and fitness. Older people require more protein to maintain energy and muscle mass, recover from illness and injury, and maintain overall health. Non-diabetic elderly people require approximately 11 g protein per 10 kg body weight daily. Here are some protein-rich eating habits: 

• Input protein sources Instead of red meat, eat more fish, poultry, legumes, and eggs.
• Replace processed carbs like sweets, cakes, pizza, pastries, biscuits, and chips with high-quality protein from the sources above.
• Replace chips, baked goods, and pizza with nuts and grains, yoghurt (preferably high-protein like Greek yoghurt), or grilled chicken breast with a plate of legumes.
• More on good nutrition.

Tips to keep you motivated:

● Focus on proximal goals, such as improving mood or energy levels, or reducing stress, rather than more distant goals such as weight loss. 

● Reward yourself after exercise with something you like, such as a warm bath or your favorite drink. 

● Record your exercises in a notebook and review them. This will help you monitor your regularity in exercises, as well as the happiness of your achievement. 

● When you exercise with a relative or friend, you can encourage and motivate each other to exercise and continue. 

Overcoming obstacles:

When you go out on vacation outside your place of residence, make sure to have workout clothes, you will find in most of the art 

Cognitive and sensory exercises, experiences and cognitive function support

It is believed that brain tissue, like other nervous tissue, does not regenerate, but recent studies have proven the opposite, coining the term "neural plasticity", which is the ability of tissues, cells, and synapses to change their shape or function, giving hope to improve brain functions at any age. To maintain the cognitive functions of the brain such as memory, learning, attention, focus, problem solving, etc., here are some important tips: 

First, the brain exercise: 

Memory is like a muscle. 
If you neglect it, it will weaken, and if you exercise it, its strength will increase. 
Here are four elements that are important to have in mental activities to help strengthen your memory: 
1. The activity should teach you something new than usual, you can try solving sudoku if you are used to doing crossword puzzles. 

2. The activity should require your good and constant attention, such as learning to play a difficult new piece of music rather than playing a piece that you already know easily. 

3. The activity should be tiered, as soon as you feel comfortable with the level you move to the top of it, like most electronic device applications that rely on cognitive functions. 

4. The activity should make you feel especially enjoyable when it's done so that you can keep doing it. 

Second: Practical steps to support memory and learning:

• To remember something well, you must pay close attention to it. It takes 8 seconds of focused attention to remember something. If you are easily distracted, choose a quiet place.
• Use all your senses. Relate information to colour, texture, scent, or taste. Writing it down or reading it aloud helps you remember it better than just reading it.
• Connect new and old information, such as a new friend's address to an old friend's address on the same street.
• For complex information, remember basic ideas rather than isolated details. Practice expressing ideas in your own words.
• Reviewing information after an interval is better than continuous repetition to remember what you have learned.

In order to remember the rest of the information, associate it with an image, sentence, word, or other of the following: