Worried About Slipping and Falling This Winter? A TRIP TO THE PHYSICAL THERAPIST MIGHT HELP
When was the last time you slipped and fell on a patch of ice? If your immediate thought was “last winter,” then you’ve probably been dreading the arrival of this year’s snowy walkways and frozen parking lots. We don’t blame you! Slipping and falling can be dangerous, especially for older people. According to the National Council on Aging, emergency departments treat more than 2.8 million fall- related injuries every year, and falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries among older adults. Those are some pretty scary statistics, no matter your age. So, what can you do to protect yourself? Well, apart from wearing nonslip shoes and watching where you walk, one of the best ways to keep yourself safe from falls is by improving your balance, and a physical therapist can help. Usually when physical therapy makes the news, it’s because a therapist helped a famous athlete recover from an injury or assisted a car crash victim in learning to walk again. These cases are inspiring, but they leave out half of the story about what PT can do. Not only can physical therapists help people recover from injuries, but they can
also prevent them by guiding patients through exercises to improve their balance, strength, and flexibility.
Physical therapists are movement experts with a keen insight into how the muscles in your body work together. Identifying your weak
spots and strengthening them with targeted exercises can help give you the coordination and agility you need to stay on your feet in slippery or icy conditions. A licensed physical therapist can customize a workout specifically for you, but you can also start improving your balance today with simple at-home exercises. ChoosePT.com is a great resource and offers guides to easy workouts like marching in place, standing on one leg, and walking heel to toe. To learn more about which exercises will help you the most, reach out to a physical therapist for some advice.
How Often Does Medicare Change, Really? THE INCEPTION OF MEDICARE, PART I “Medicare changes!”
People were living longer in the ‘60s. As workers got older, they stopped working and a new concept emerged — retirement. These retirees needed health insurance because they were no longer receiving this benefit from their employer. And as we know, the cost of health coverage grows exponentially as we age, which made it difficult for retirees to find health coverage because insurance companies did not want to pay the costs to cover these older individuals. As medical bills began impoverishing citizens in their final years, Medicare was created as a solution for adults 65 and older. The law was amended in 1972 to include individuals under 65 who had been disabled for two years and those with end stage renal disease (ESRD). My father got on Medicare early because his kidneys failed, and he had to go on dialysis, which is incredibly
expensive. A couple years later, he got a kidney transplant.
“Get the most out of your Medicare benefits.”
Today, clients call me on a regular basis because they hear Medicare is “changing.” When you call the celebrity- sponsored commercial ad number, they’ll probably tell you your current plan is not very good, but the one they can switch you to is the cat’s meow. But this is misleading. The truth is that Medicare changes, but it does so very slowly, over a long time. One of the reasons I started my newsletter and website was to keep clients abreast of changes to their plans or in the Medicare world in general. However, I’m happy to break down a few older changes as well, so you’re always completely informed about what Medicare can offer you. We’ll take a look at a few famous changes in next month’s edition.
“Don’t miss out on the Medicare updates.”
You’ve probably heard messages like these on TV or seen them in newspapers and on postcards you’ve received in the mail. Clients often call me to ask about these so-called changes. But does Medicare really change that much, or are fast-talking salespeople just trying to trick you into calling them so they can sell you something? To understand changes to Medicare, you have to understand more about the program itself, which was enacted by Congress in 1965. The truth is that government-administered programs don’t usually happen overnight. And neither do changes to them.
2 • OmahaInsuranceSolutions.com
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