Written by Daniel Poch, Founder and CEO of AlestaCare
The origin of AlestaCare includes a combination of seeing the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on my grandmother, the challenges it presented my mom who became her primary caregiver, and the desire both of my parents had to live independently and stay at home.
Another contributor to starting the company was my 30 years of professional experience helping many thousands of people at hundreds of companies improve their metabolic health by making modest changes to their behaviors around physical activity, relationships, emotions, and food. What I read in the clinical literature during that time was that good heart health also helped create good brain health.
I believe we have a tremendous opportunity to help people age safely and independently. AlestaCare was created to help protect the desire that many have to do just that. In fact, that is how AlestaCare got its name – to serve as “protector” or “defender.” We have assembled a team of people who will help deliver this for our clients.
We continue to build AlestaCare for the purpose of helping people, mostly the elderly, with their day-to-day needs in their own home or wherever they call home. This includes supporting them with personal care needs such as bathing, dressing, and mobility issues as well as other independent living tasks. These are the core functions of a non-medical home care business, including AlestaCare. That is where many companies stop. We continue to build on that foundation with something more.
At AlestaCare, we want to help our clients not just survive in place but to thrive – physically, emotionally, and cognitively. We have created AlestaLiving, our solution intended to reduce the behavioral risk factors of cognitive disorders including Alzheimer’s and other dementias. According to clinical studies, there is the potential to prevent or delay the onset of a dementia as well as the potential to reduce the severity of the symptoms by addressing some modifiable behaviors. These behavioral risk factors include physical activity, mental stimulation, nutritional habits, social isolation, and sleep. Today, I’ll share some about physical activity.
A study published last year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last year titled “Effectiveness of exercise for improving cognition, memory and executive function: a systematic umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis” noted the benefit of exercise on cognition, memory, and executive function. Some key findings of the study showed that as little as one to three months of regular exercise improves memory and cognitive function. It also highlighted the fact that high intensity workouts are not necessary to see results nor are specific types of exercise required. A final note we will mention is that benefits are seen across all ages.
It is certainly beneficial to practice brain healthy habits all our lives but it can also be helpful to start now no matter your age. Exercise helps your brain in multiple ways by increasing blood flow, reducing inflammation, enhancing neurotransmitters, and improving vascular health. In this way, it can result in reduced risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias and preventing cognitive decline and brain atrophy.
This brings us back to why we do what we do. At AlestaCare, we seek to include exercise in every client interaction. Sometimes it is as simple as walking. Other times it is more directed towards a specific activity like the ability to rise from a bed or chair. We are not offering a therapeutic service or treating a condition – we leave that up to your clinicians. Our goal is to focus on activities that will help make day-to-day life easier for our clients and their families.
Of course, there is much more to AlestaLiving. I will share other elements in coming weeks or contact us now for more information.
You can learn more about how AlestaCare supports families at www.alestacare.com. You can also reach us by phone at (843) 800-2332 or by email info@alestacare.com.