Summary
In this episode of Care Lab, Brandy Archie and Emilia Bourland have a candid, experience-based conversation about challenges and prevention strategies in home health care. They discuss real-life patient scenarios, systemic obstacles, and how early intervention and education can prevent ER visits and hospitalizations. Topics include wheelchair equipment delays, congestive heart failure management, blood pressure monitoring, and recognizing early warning signs like shortness of breath and increased difficulty with daily tasks.
Key Questions Answered
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Why is home health care such a unique and valuable experience for providers?
Home health offers providers a real-world view of what patients deal with daily. Working in someone’s home allows professionals to see challenges that aren’t obvious in clinical settings—like lack of equipment or safety hazards—and to provide more realistic, meaningful interventions. It fosters empathy and improves care planning across all care environments. -
What makes getting the right equipment in home health so frustrating?
Even when clinicians know exactly what a patient needs—like a properly fitted wheelchair or a wound-care cushion—barriers like unresponsive doctors, insurance red tape, and long wait times make timely access difficult. This delays recovery and risks additional harm, even though these items are often covered by insurance. -
Why is daily monitoring (like weight and blood pressure) so critical for chronic conditions?
For conditions like congestive heart failure (CHF), even small changes in weight can signal dangerous fluid buildup. Daily weighing and regular blood pressure checks give both patients and providers the opportunity to intervene early with medication adjustments, helping avoid emergency room visits and hospital stays. -
When is it time to ask for help with daily activities?
As soon as tasks like toileting, dressing, or walking get harder, it's time to act—not wait. These early signs often lead to dehydration, skin issues, or falls if ignored. Getting occupational therapy early can restore function and prevent cascading health problems, while waiting can lead to hospitalization. -
What common symptoms should never be brushed off?
Shortness of breath, swelling in the legs, sudden fatigue, or feeling dizzy when standing up may seem small, but they signal bigger issues—especially in older adults. These signs should prompt immediate attention, not be normalized or blamed on aging. Early recognition means better outcomes and fewer crises.
Transcript
Brandy Archie
Welcome to Care Lab everybody. I'm so glad to be here. Amelia, it's good to see you.
Emilia Bourland
Yes, it's good to see you too. I'm excited to be here on Care Lab as always on Fridays.
Brandy Archie
We got a solo episode today and by solo I mean two of us instead of three of us. I guess I should say we have a duo episode with no guests. I've been having this question that I was wondering about. I have spent all of my career doing home health, either full time or part time. So I love going into people's homes. People think that's weird, but I think it's a great place to do OT.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that makes more sense. With no guess.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Totally.
Brandy Archie
What I'm wondering is, in your experience at Home Health, what's like one of the strangest or most challenging like scenes you walked into? Because I think that's like the hallmark of Home Health is like, you just never know what's happening in people's homes.
Emilia Bourland
You just never know. And I actually think that doing home health was so important for me in my clinical career for anywhere that I worked because it gave me a better understanding of the realities of what people were really having to deal with at home and what it really looked like. And once you know that, you are so much better.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Totally.
Emilia Bourland
I think at helping to prepare people for that and asking the right questions if you're in rehab or if you're in acute care or whatever it is. I think if any provider who has the opportunity to work in the community in people's homes, even if it's not your jam, if it's not the thing that you love, it's worth doing at least for a little while so that you have a sense of what life actually looks like for people.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
Totally agree, totally agree.
Emilia Bourland
because it helps you be way more effective. But yeah, so that is not a hard question to answer. There was one that immediately came to my mind, partly because it was so challenging and partly because I think it was unfortunately typical of some of the challenges that I would see. So went to see a patient in their home for an evaluation. This person was largely bed bound, had a family caregiver who was
Brandy Archie
Mm.
Emilia Bourland
you know, essentially responsible for meeting all of that person's needs. They're pretty elderly, pretty frail. And one of their goals was just simply to be able to, to sit up in a chair and go out and sit on on the porch and like get some sunshine, which is a wonderful goal. Yeah. And I was, I was all about that. What was really challenging about the situation was that
Brandy Archie
totally understandable.
Emilia Bourland
this person was already developing wounds. And so in order to safely get someone into a seating situation, especially if they have any kind of wound development, really have to make sure that you have one, obviously you have to have the right care services on board to be addressing those wounds. But also equipment is so, so important and like not just anything will do.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Right? You have to have not just a wheelchair, you have to have a wheelchair that actually fits the person. You don't have to have just like a cushion. Like not any cushion will work. You definitely cannot put a pillow in that chair. Like that's gonna make, that's a big no-no. Right? You really have to have like a highly specialized cushion that's gonna support not just like prevention of wounds, but actually wound healing.
Brandy Archie
Yep.
Emilia Bourland
And so it was a really challenging situation just in terms of trying to get this person's needs met from a basic equipment perspective. I don't know, hopefully it's a little bit different now. This was a while ago and it's been a hot minute since I've been doing like traditional home health. But at that time in that situation, it was so difficult for me to get a hold of the provider in order
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
to get the ball rolling for this patient's equipment needs. And kind of the only thing that I could do safely for that person until we had the right equipment on board was work on caregiver training, bed level stuff, general strengthening so that they would be ready to get up in that chair once we finally got it. it was just a really, really challenging situation for the patient, for the caregiver. And I felt really challenged.
Brandy Archie
Okay.
Emilia Bourland
by, and honestly really disappointed in our healthcare system too, by the fact that like, I knew exactly what this person needed. I knew that if we could get that for this person, not only would it improve their quality of life, but it would also prevent a lot of additional harms and a lot of additional healthcare costs. And yet it was so incredibly difficult for me to be an advocate on behalf of that patient, my patient.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
provider, right, to actually get them what they need. And so that really stands out as a moment that was incredibly frustrating and instructive for me. And really, I think, probably helped to shape a lot of what I wanted to go forward and do at higher standards caregiver training and now at senior AI as well, trying to help people get the resources that they need.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that is I you started by saying this is so typical, you know, it was a challenging situation But it's not like a off-the-wall one. He's not a one-off You know like that's a regular thing and like the other thing you do blup out is that the cushion and the right wheelchair are actually pieces of equipment that are covered by insurance whereas Mostly everything else that's adaptive equipment that you might want in your home like grab bars and shower chairs are not covered So you knew what they needed?
Emilia Bourland
It wasn't a one-off. Nope.
Emilia Bourland
Yes!
Brandy Archie
it was gonna be able to be covered by insurance and you had two barriers. Like one is you couldn't get the doctor to sign it. And two, let's just say you got the doctor to sign it. It takes time to get both of those items. So if you get a custom wheelchair and don't just do a based on height and weight, which is really important and almost everybody should do, it takes three months at least to get that chair there. And how long our home health stays? Not always three months. And
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Often even if they are for nursing, OTA is discharged already, you know. And so that makes it really challenging to like follow through with like the really important changes that need to happen to make people's lives better, you know.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, yeah, I just think it's so frustrating that so often like we know exactly what we need to do for someone to help make it better. There are all of these barriers in the way that seem to be making it so we can't do exactly what we need to do to make people's lives better. And you know what? That just, that sucks. That sucks.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
It does. It does. I mean, we're trying to create things that will make a change in that, but we have such a long ways to go, whether it's in senior AI or if it's as Sammy or like OT connected, like our part of our role is to try to help people know that OT is a solution and also provide the tools that OTs need in order to try to get through some of the red tape a little bit faster or a lot faster because I got the resources I need. So my fear was always showing up to somebody's house and they'd be dead on the floor.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Ooh, I was so afraid of someone coding when I was there with them by myself. So afraid of that. Yeah.
Brandy Archie
Yeah. Thankfully it never actually did happen. I have sent many people to the ER and like in home health there's and well, I guess I should say the way, you know, if you're in acute or an ICU, there's all these sounds going off. And when that's happening is because your vitals are not at the right levels and you need attention. Well, there are similar sets of vitals that are paid attention to at home health. And like you set the parameters and you first start
about like, okay, if this person is above this or below this, we're gonna call the doctor. We can't get the doctor, we're gonna send him to the ER. So like, this is like pre-established stuff. And it's important because if you're in home health, you're still somewhat acute. You still have an injury or an illness that's still impairing your ability such that you're unable to leave the house safely and consistently. And so those values are really important and people will be like, you know, on the brink.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
But do you want to give them care at home? It's better for you to be at home, but it's also still like a tenuous situation. And so, I was, I, I think like I was talking and doing like a virtual assessment with somebody the other day. Um, and it was for wheelchair, but I can't unsee things and can't I know the things I already know. Right. So while I'm supposed to be evaluating for a wheelchair, which we did, I'm always asking questions about all the things. So this person had like,
Emilia Bourland
Totally.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
a lot of swelling in their legs. And so you can get wheelchairs that have elevating leg rest. So I'm asking those questions, but really I'm like, this is pretty severe. What things, mean, is your doctor telling you you should be doing? I'm supposed to weigh myself every day. And I was like, yes, are you doing that? Well, I did it a couple of days ago. was like, do you understand the importance of why they want you to weigh every day? Well, I think if it goes up, I'm supposed to go to the ER. I'm like, well.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Right.
Brandy Archie
That's close.
Emilia Bourland
But do you know why you have to go to the ER? I think that's the thing, that's like the missing link for so many people, right?
Brandy Archie
Yes, you need to know why you go to the ER and also how you cannot go to the ER, right? Because if you do actually measure your weight every day, if you have cardiac heart failure, for example, or COPD and you have this significant swelling in your leg, there are parameters that the doctor can then change your meds for over the phone and have it sent in to CVS or whatever. And you take more or take more of what you already have based on what your weight is for that day. So that maybe we can keep it from overloading you.
Right? Because the problem is that your heart can only do so much. And if it's surrounded by fluid, just not pumping effectively. And then that fluid is staying stuck in your feet. And so the more that you build that up, the harder your heart works and like, your heart can only do so much.
Emilia Bourland
And then the, it's, I love, can I tell you one of my favorite things to educate on is like functional management of congestive heart failure because there's so much that we can do for that particular condition functionally, especially if the person with congestive heart failure understands their condition and the management strategies really well and the principles behind them. And they're not challenging principles actually, like you said.
Brandy Archie
Yes!
Emilia Bourland
Your heart is a pump, right? It can only pump so much. like here's how I always explain it. Think about if you have a basement, a lot of times we have to deal with water in our basement, right? So you might have a sump pump in your basement and it kinda, keeps your basement dry. It's pumping, it's pumping, it's pumping. But it has a limited capacity for how much it can pump. So if you turn a hose on in that basement, then your basement is gonna flood eventually, even.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
If the sump pump, yeah, because it's only gonna do so much. So when we give our heart too much work to do, essentially that fluid is just backing up behind the heart, just backs up, backs up, backs up, and your body is flooding because the heart is overloaded and it can't keep up with the workload, just like the sump pump, right? So, but when people start to understand that, they're like, wait.
Brandy Archie
Even though you gotta step up.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
I, that's crazy. It's also relatively simple to understand. And then we can say, well, what can I do about that? Right.
Brandy Archie
totally and to continue the analogy, because I think this is so important. So the hose is on, the sub pump is pumping, but the thing is filling up. If you call a plumber and you say, hey, this thing is filling up and they're like, oh, take these two steps. And then you do that and then you can get the water down, right? Like go turn off the hose or turn the flow down or whatever, you know, so that there's less water going in there. You still got water, still gotta get pumped out.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
We're getting ahead of the curve, right? But if you just keep the water on and you don't call the plumber, then eventually the thing's going to flood. And then you're going to have to call the fire department or excavate or whatever you got to do. You now have an emergency situation instead of a challenging situation that can be managed. And the same thing's happening in CHF. And so I guess I kind of just want them to like, so many people don't really recognize what some of these early warning signs are or why they're being told to monitor certain things.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
and what they can do to do about it and what they can do to not like end up on the floor and not have help. Because our bodies are telling us stuff a lot of the time. It's just we don't always listen and we don't know what we're listening for if you don't know the language, right? So I thought maybe it'd be cool if we could go through some of those things so we can like help prevent the ER visit altogether.
Emilia Bourland
all the time.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, I think that that sounds awesome. could, you know what, what we should honestly do too is we should, if, so folks, if you're listening and you like this, leave comments about it. And if there's anything in particular you're interested in prevention about, cause then we can address that in future episodes too, because there are so many different conditions and things that can happen that we can talk about on a, on a prevention level. But yeah, I think, I think that sounds, that sounds awesome.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Okay, aside from, should we, do we need to dial back on CHF a little bit or do you think that we did a good job talking about that already?
Brandy Archie
I was actually going to say we talked about the reasoning behind it, but we didn't talk about the numbers of like, so let's talk about that. Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, let's do that. Yeah.
Brandy Archie
So your doctor's telling you to weigh yourself so that you can know exactly what your weight is. So that if your weight increases by, and you are gonna correct me if I'm wrong, I'm probably forgetting all my numbers, but if your weight increases by three pounds in a day, that would be a challenge, or five or seven pounds in a week, that would be bad. That would be call them and let them make some changes to your meds so can fix it.
But if it goes up one pound or down one pound, that's cool, keep going. But you don't know those differences unless you're taking your weight every day.
Emilia Bourland
So here's what I would say, and I'm gonna roll it back even further. So congestive heart failure is basically when your heart is not as efficient at pumping the blood as it used to be, right? So like the pump is not working as efficiently. It's not moving your blood, as much blood around with each squeeze as it used to. And so like that's why stuff starts to back up. And that's why the system can get overloaded if you're if you're overstressed with activities or.
You know you're doing too much or if you're eating a lot of salt or you know xyz things so So that's kind of like the the very basic basis of everything in terms of yeah in terms of like the numbers for How much is okay? How much is not okay? I always tell people Make sure that you have a specific conversation with your doctor about exactly what that number is for you
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
because a general guideline is just a general guideline for you in your body. Your doctor is gonna have a specific guideline that you need to look out for. And then like Brandy said, making sure that you are actually checking those weights on a daily basis is incredibly important so that you can stay ahead of it, right? Like if you got a little flood, your doctor can make some changes.
and you get right back on track and you're feeling good and you can go about your life. If you got a big flood, that's when we end up, you know, in the hospital with what we often call like a CHF exacerbation, you know, or acute like volume overload, which just means there's too much water in you. Your heart can't keep up with it. Too much fluid. And then things get a lot more dicey and uncomfortable and no one wants to go to the hospital. I feel like I was going to say one more thing about that.
but then I forgot what it was.
Brandy Archie
But if it's important, you'll come back.
Emilia Bourland
If it's important, he'll come back. It's real life, people.
Brandy Archie
You know, the other thing that my family was sitting around the table doing last week was checking blood pressures. And by family, I mean like my siblings and my parents. And so that's a wide range of ages. And some people have diagnosed high blood pressure and are taking medication and some people are not. And it was interesting because some of us had not even checked our blood pressure. And some people's blood pressure was actually on the high side.
Emilia Bourland
huh.
Brandy Archie
And so that's an indicator that we need to do something about that. that's ghosts, well, it should start with going to see the doctor. And then there's a variety of different strategies you can take. But if you're not listening to your body's language, one of them is blood pressure, then you don't know. That's why high blood pressure is called a silent killer. So what do you feel like people should know about blood pressure as far as like a precursor sign to something else?
Emilia Bourland
Well, OK, I always like to start from the very beginning, a very good place to start, as Maria from the Sound of Music says, which is understanding when we're measuring blood pressure, what are we actually measuring, right? OK, so the top number of your blood pressure, everyone always knows this like 120 over 80 or whatever it is. So the top number of your blood pressure is the pressure in your heart when your heart is squeezing.
Brandy Archie
That's right.
That's right.
Emilia Bourland
And the bottom pressure is the pressure in your heart when your heart is relaxed, right? So that's where these two different blood pressure numbers essentially come from. So when we have blood pressure that is too low, we might feel dizzy, especially when we're standing up, right? We might feel lightheaded. I find that people have lots of different reasons for this or different names for this. They might say dizzy, lightheaded, woozy.
kind of feeling like off or whatever. So if that's something that is being experienced frequently, that's a good thing to go and talk with your physician about. And of course, if we have low blood pressure, that can increase our risk for falls because if we stand up too fast, if we move too quickly, we're at risk of passing out for that, essentially. When we have really high blood pressure, that's often what we're referring to when we're talking about high blood pressure as being the silent killer, right? Because we can't.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
necessarily always feel it. Although I think although some people can feel it and probably if we're more if we are more aware of our body then we might be able to recognize it more often. But so like what are some of why is high blood pressure a silent killer? If you think about it like your body is a a mechanical system in many ways and if you have really high pressure in your in the engine in your car.
Brandy Archie
Mm hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
or in the tires in your car. Eventually, like there's wear and tear on that system because of that pressure, right? Well, your blood is pumped every single place in your body. And so when you have chronically high blood pressure, there's a lot of wear and tear on your system that goes on and it can cause problems with your whole vascular system. So that's like one of the basic underlying reasons that this is so problematic. So I think...
making sure that you are doing regular blood pressure checks because like you said Brandy a lot of times people cannot always tell that they are having high blood pressure and if you notice that your that your blood pressure also kind of checking at different times during the day can be really helpful so your blood pressure in the morning might be different than your blood pressure in the afternoon or before bedtime so you know doing some different checks during the day to say I wake up in the morning and it's fine but by the afternoon
My blood pressure is 20 points higher. If you're seeing, and again, so this all starts also conversation with your doctor, what should my blood pressure be? Because as we age, that like quote unquote perfect blood pressure does change a little, right? So conversation with your doctor, what should my blood pressure be? Monitor that, know, two, three times a day to see if there's, if you are on that baseline.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
If you're not on that baseline, having a conversation with your doctor like, I'm 10 points higher for the top one and I'm five points higher for the bottom one. Both numbers matter. And if you are also seeing wide changes in that blood pressure, then these are things that you want to bring up. the questions are, I off of my baseline? How much is it OK to be off of my baseline?
Because there are natural variations in our blood pressure every day. Like after you exercise, that top number is going to be a little bit higher. That bottom number, we don't really want to change actually a whole lot. We kind of want that bottom number to stay pretty darn consistent all the time, right? So if I'm seeing changes, how big are these variations? And am I seeing a change over the course of the day in my blood pressure? And again, we want to have conversations with
Brandy Archie
you
Emilia Bourland
your physician about these issues so that they can step in early and make those little adjustments that they might need to make to your your blood pressure medication or if you're on blood pressure medication. Also talking with you about things like diet because our diet really right like that affects if we eat a lot of salt if we eat a lot of salt which if you're reading a label salt is also called sodium so you're looking if you want to know how much salt is in something if you're reading label you should look for the sodium on there it's not gonna be called salt.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
If you're eating a lot of salt, that makes you retain water. Guess what? Then you have more fluid, you got more pressure in the system, and your blood pressure is going to go up. So how can we manage this with diet? How can we manage this with exercise? How can we manage this with stress control? Because there's so much that goes into it. But the really key point is knowing what your correct baseline should be. Having conversations with your doctor and...
Brandy Archie
you
Emilia Bourland
making sure that you are actually monitoring these things and not just saying like, well, I feel fine because blood pressure is one of those things where you could feel fine and it might not necessarily always be okay. I talked for a long time about that. Sorry, you have it.
Brandy Archie
You're good educated. This is why this is what you do. And I do think it's really important for people to know the background of that. But to take that into a bite size action steps, it would be, you know, if you're not already, definitely do your annual wellness check with your doctor. Then they're going to check your vitals and then you can get that baseline number and then check your own blood pressure, right?
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
And if you start to notice changes or you start to feel any of the symptoms that we talked about for low blood pressure or just weirdness, maybe you just don't know, you don't feel right, but you just, you don't know what it is, check your blood pressure. And when you do that, write it down and make another appointment with your doctor and then bring those numbers, right? Like whether you took it, when you took it, what time you took it, how you felt when you took it. Because then they have a ton more data to go off of to make a decision.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Because otherwise they might say, hmm, it might be something with your blood pressure, but I only see your blood pressure today right now and compared to three months ago when you were here last. So go home, track it for me. Well, if you could just track it a jump when you start to notice any changes, then they can make a better decision. So, and a lot of blood pressure machines will keep all your readings anyway. And you could just bring the whole blood pressure machine there. Don't even have to write anything down. So that's the action step. Like pay attention to the number because it is important. And it does tell you stuff.
before it becomes a super huge problem.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm. think so something else that I think is sort of like big but I would love to address in this episode talking about like early intervention in prevention is just paying attention to When things are getting harder to do or when you're needing more help with things This is really key for a lot of issues obviously it's key for fall prevention because the earlier we can step in when something is
Brandy Archie
Okay.
Emilia Bourland
becoming difficult, the easier it is to get you back to your baseline so things aren't so hard and therefore like prevent things from getting getting too hard. But also, besides just fall prevention, when we start to have a more difficult time doing tasks for ourselves or someone is needing more assistance with a task, there can be other implications for that. So let's say, for example, that someone is having a tougher time
going to the bathroom, like getting to and from the toilet, getting their pants on and off, wiping. That person at that point is at risk of a bunch of different things that could land them in the hospital. For one, they might be disincentivized to drink enough water because they don't want to go to bathroom.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
You know that number of people have told me I say how much water are you drinking? Well, I don't drink that much because I don't want to go to the bathroom. I was like this is the problem. You kid, this is not what we need to do. We need to do the other way. I know it makes it hard to go to the bathroom. We got to go frequently. We can solve that problem with a lot of different things, but your body needs the water. So yes, because dehydration leads to
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Yep, so we're at risk.
can lead to UTI. It can lead to constipation. It can lead to low blood pressure, which can lead to fainting and falling. All kinds of issues that de- your body needs water, right? That's the most basic thing. So one of the things that can happen is if people are having a harder time getting to the restroom, they might be disincentivized to drink. They might get dehydrated and have all those other risks go along with it. If someone is having a harder time going to the bathroom,
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
I need one.
Emilia Bourland
they might find themselves in a situation where actually their rates of incontinence can get higher because of some of those other effects. And then we might find ourselves in situations where we're again needing more assistance to like clean ourselves up. We're also at a higher risk for things like skin breakdown at that point because if our skin is wet or soiled then it puts our skin integrity at risk. And of course, you know,
If you're not getting up to go to the bathroom because it's too hard to go to the bathroom, then we're also like kind of maybe nesting somewhere where we got all our stuff that makes it so you're not getting up as much. And so the problem is actually snowballing. It's actually snowballing. It's not getting better. So like this is just one example where if we notice that something is getting more difficult, we want to speak up about it and be really good advocates for ourselves right away. And we don't want to let
Brandy Archie
Yes.
Emilia Bourland
someone brush off the fact that we say something is harder. So like if something is harder but you're kind of getting by, that's actually the perfect time to have an intervention from an occupational therapist because we can come in, we can do a couple sessions with you or a handful of sessions get you right back where you need to be and you are off and on your way living the life that you want to live. If we're waiting to say that that someone needs therapy
Brandy Archie
Exactly. Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
or they deserve therapy only at a point where they become so debilitated that it's a really serious problem, then actually, that's not where we want to be. In many ways, we've failed if we've already gotten to that point. And if we are at that point, then we're much more likely to end up in the hospital because we've had a fall, we've had a UTI, we're dehydrated, we've got skin breakdown, all of these things. And all those things suck. They all suck.
Brandy Archie
Exactly.
Brandy Archie
Multiple problems. They all do. We don't want none of them. We don't want none of them. We definitely don't want to be in the hospital. We don't want any of those things. That's totally true. So yeah, so we're saying check your blood pressure, saying don't brush off when things get more challenging. Don't think like this is just how it has to be. I'm getting older. It's just hard to get old. Deal with it. And then if you have congestive heart failure, manage that swelling and do those things.
Emilia Bourland
We don't want that.
Yeah
Brandy Archie
I want to throw one more thing in there that I think is a good sign that people ignore, which is shortness of breath. And so if you're going to do a regular task, let's just say it's walking to the bathroom. You've been walking that same distance from your chair to the bathroom for who knows how long. If you start getting winded doing that task or going to get the mail or getting to your car and you don't usually get winded, that's a big sign that something's wrong.
Emilia Bourland
Okay. yeah.
Brandy Archie
Whether that, there could be many things that it could be covering up. We don't need to go down the road of like what all they could be. That's what the doctor's business for. The point is get it checked out. Because when you start to get short of breath, that means something in body is not working the same way it used to. And we need to try to improve it. Because the more short of breath you get, what are you gonna do? You're tired. It's harder to go do the thing. So you're gonna sit longer and get all those saying.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
snowball effects end up happening that cause even more health problems on top of whatever the health problem is that's causing your shortness of breath. So don't ignore that one either.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm. I'm really glad that you brought that up. And so if you made it to the end of this episode and you found anything in here helpful, then please make sure that you're sharing it with other folks. Subscribe, leave a comment for us. But also, I think that this was a great and important conversation to have talking about prevention in lots of different areas. And so if you're listening and you're like, well, I would love to know about how to prevent this or how to prevent that or whatever.
Leave us a comment and we can come back and do another episode on this covering either a few topics or dedicated to one. We can bring in an expert on a specific topic if we need to to cover that. Because what Brandy and I are on a mission to do in so many ways in life is stop the bad things from happening in the first place so that y'all can keep living your lives. Because that's what we do as OTs. Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of Care Lab. We'll see you back next week.
Brandy Archie
Right.
Emilia Bourland
right here on Care Lab. Until then, bye.
Brandy Archie
Bye everybody.
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