At The Arbor Company, part of our commitment to every resident that walks through our doors is to provide an industry-leading, compassionate and personalized healthcare experience.
In our latest informative episode, we had the pleasure of being joined by nurse practitioner, Carleen Brownlee, who works directly with one of our local visiting physicians, Dr. Evancho, to regularly check up on those suffering from chronic conditions such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia and thyroid conditions.
In this episode, Carleen highlights the reason it is so important for us to have follow-up visits at least every 3-6 months with our primary care physicians as we age to ensure no serious problems have developed and that existing conditions are being treated properly. This ensures utmost quality of life and that we are living our best years to the fullest.
To learn more about our care services, book a personalized tour at an Arbor community near you or call one of our dedicated team members for more information (404) 237-4026.
Video Transcript
Hi, everyone, and welcome to an episode of Senior Living Live. My name is Mary Cate Spires, and we are here on-site in Cooper City, Florida at Arbor Terrace Cooper City. I'm so excited today. We are going to be talking more about senior health and the importance of going to the doctor. We have a very special guest, miss Carleen Brownlee. I am so excited to have you here. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and let us know what you do here?
Absolutely. Hi. Thank you for having me. My name is Carlene Brown Lee. I'm a nurse practitioner here at Arbor Terrace. I do work under Healthstone with doctor Ivancho.
Alrighty. So not everyone loves going to the doctor, myself included. But, we wanna talk today a little bit about how important it is to consistently get checked up. Can you speak a little bit to that?
Yes. So my position as a nurse practitioner, we will come here once a month to visit the patients for their chronic conditions, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, a lot of times patient have thyroid issues. And it is very important to follow-up to be seen by your primary care physician to get the assistant needed care because you're not able to go out to your PCP. Right.
And so let's say, a senior is still at home. They might not have moved yet. How often should they be going to the doctor?
If they have their chronic medical condition, especially with hypertension, I'm a say as an example, at least every three to six months.
And so maybe let's say a little earlier, you know, we all are told to get our annual, our annual physical.
Absolutely.
Which some of us are better at than others as we discussed. But let's say, you know, a senior comes in for their year, their annual physical, they've been relatively healthy. What are some of those things you all may look for, in a senior patient?
In the senior geriatric population, we will look more for the care of an older adult. And that being, is that patient still able to feed themselves with their annual physical? Are they able to still walk on their own without needing assistance of a cane or a walker? Does that patient need more care as far as incontinence? Are they able to go to the bathroom without assistance? Are they wearing depends? All of that is part of their annual visits. With that also comes is their annual well, every ten years they should have a colonoscopy, just to make sure before they're sixty five, I think. Just to make sure there's no colon cancer, and screening to be done. A lot of times with the elderly, we need to screen them for risk for falls, for risk of needing more assistance in the need. Here at Arbor Terrace, they do offer assisted living. It's not where there'd be a total care. Right.
And so you talked a little bit about some, some chronic illnesses. What what are some of those that people should watch out for?
With that being said, one of the chronic ones that I've been mainly monitoring is the hyperlipidemia, which is the elevated cholesterol levels. We do do their blood work, have it ordered. And one of the good things about being here is that the facilities offer different companies, mobilely, to come here and draw their labs. So the patient does not have to actually leave the facility to get their blood work done or to have their EKGs done or even to have their, you know, x rays done if they have a cough or a cold. We do provide them with that assistance here at Arbor Terrace.
That's amazing. You never have to leave if you don't want to.
No. Not unless it's urgent.
Yes. Yes. Of course.
Urgent care. I will send you out. Yes. Yeah.
What, advice would you have for seniors or even all of us, for really, you know, taking care of yourself outside of making sure you're you're hitting that annual physical?
That would be number one, the annual. Don't forget that you are offered this through your insurances, and we do have to do the prescreening to make sure that you don't have any cancer, prescreening for the cholesterol, prescreening for the hypertension. We do we do all prescreening with you being here in the facility, and the assistance is offered here wherever you go.
That's amazing. Alright. Well, I think that is everything that I have for you. Is there anything else you just like seniors to know?
At the facility, they also offer physical therapy and occupational therapy. Speech therapy is also offered here. That is also being mobile. Once the physician puts in the order, we put in the referral and, companies or home health agencies will come out and actually do the evaluation on the facility and see if the patient needs any further assistance with their mobility. So before I forget, yeah, that would be very important.
What kind of thing you know, what might be a reason why someone needs that therapy?
If they've had a recent fall or if they just develop weakness with lifting, or getting out of bed, or they notice that their legs are more weaker than usual in their request to be evaluated.
Fantastic. And what about speech therapy?
Speech therapy comes with the correlation of vocabulary words. One, are they able to chew? That can also be evaluated with their swallowing. Sometimes they have difficulty with swallowing pills and maybe we might need to change their diet. So speech therapy comes in and also evaluate how they're swallowing and how they're pronouncing letters and words. Are they able to correlate or have there been any, you know, decline in their care?
Absolutely. So you all Mhmm. The community, doctors, therapists, all working together for that holistic health.
Yes. And the one thing that I did forget to mention is that they also offer, we offer evaluation for anyone who needs to see a psychiatrist.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. We can put in the referral and a psychiatrist also does visit.
You guys are doing everything. It's great.
We try.
Taking great care.
We try. Yes.
Fantastic. Well, I cannot thank you enough for stopping by during, I'm sure, a very busy schedule to chat with us.
It is. But it's okay. A little time to educate doesn't hurt.
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Yeah. You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Alright, everyone. If you are interested in learning more about health and senior living, you can see videos like this and more at seniorlivinglive.com, and that is it for now. Thanks everyone.
