With the dramatic growth in the elder population and the staggering number of people with dementia, now more than ever, there is a need to find ways to enhance the quality of life for both the patients and caregivers. On today’s show, Carrie Miller is joined by Rachelle Baum, the Founder and owner of CASA Healthcare to talk about caring for aging individuals. A physical therapist with over 23 years of experience in hospital care, rehab sports, orthopedic, skilled nursing, and home healthcare, Rachelle discusses the needs of someone living at home by themselves and what they need from their healthcare professionals. 
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Listen to the podcast here:

Caring For Aging Individuals With Rachelle Baum
We’ve got a special guest for you all. She’s the Founder and Owner of CASA Healthcare. She’s a physical therapist with over 23 years of experience in hospital care, rehab, sports, orthopedic, skilled nursing and home healthcare. She owns her own outpatient physical therapy clinic and has over twenty years of experience in home health. She spent her life in a caregiver’s role. We appreciate her and we’re excited to have her here. Welcome, Rachelle Baum.
Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. You said I’ve been a caregiver a lot of my life. It’s true because I have eight children. Plus, caring for these wonderful elderly senior citizens. It’s great being in the caregiver role. I feel like I’m doing a lot of good helping people with their health and being healthy.
Let’s dive right into our discussion about caring for aging individuals. Especially those with some form of dementia, but may not necessarily been diagnosed with dementia. I believe that our readers want to know because you’re that person that totally understands the individual’s needs, someone who’s committed to listening and adapting to the needs of your clients. Most of us know that there’s a dramatic growth in the elder population and a staggering number of people with dementia. We believe in going beyond medicine to find ways to enhance the quality of life for patients and caregivers. I’m sure you’d agree. Let’s first discuss the needs of someone living at home by themselves and what they need from you as a healthcare professional.
This is why you’re going to be effective and great. You focus on nutrition. I’m certified with Medicare. Medicare pays for us to go in the home and we’re the cheapest form of healthcare. We’re on the front line. It’s unfortunate because they’re not treating us as important as are because we see what’s going on in the home. For somebody that lives by themselves, their nutrition is super important. As you and I both have heard from seminars we’ve gone to or doctors that have talked about dementia, being a Type 3 diabetes can cause dementia. People have not talked about that. You have an elderly person that lives at home. Maybe they’re not shopping, they get and they’re eating junk food. It’s not a surprise that they might have dementia, memory problems, especially if they’re taking medications. That’s the other thing. Many of these seniors are prescribed several medications. My mother-in-law came home from the hospital with six different blood pressure medicines.
A lot of them don’t even know what are all these medicines, but they take them because the doctor says you need to take them. Especially if they’re living by themselves, it’s dangerous because they have side effects and if they’re not eating well, they might forget how to take them appropriately or when to take them.