Move over, goji berries: there’s a new superfood in town. Meet the Aronia berry! Aronia berries have outstanding nutritional and pharmacological properties which have been well documented. They contain high levels of antioxidants which research has shown helps in fighting cancer, reduces inflammation, and helps to reduce blood glucose in diabetics. In the spectrum of nutrition, berries rank near the top, and among berries, none are more nutritious than the Aronia berry. Aronia berries contain five times the antioxidant level of goji berries with no bitter aftertaste.
Community News
Rewrite the Software of your Mind
If you were to create your life today, what would you change? Would you like better health, more loving relationships or more purpose and meaning in life? Almost everything we do is based on our beliefs in the subconscious mind, because we operate about 95% of our lives from the subconscious programming. PSYCH-K® is a fast and painless way to rewrite limiting beliefs or the perception of trauma in the subconscious mind. Based on years of research and thousands of sessions with individuals and groups it is a simple and direct way to “update” the programming in the subconscious mind with the help of kinesiology.
Profile: Carelink Home Care
Carelink Home Care Inc. offers non-medical, in-home care for seniors with a variety of services to help them stay in the comfort of their own homes. Obianuju (JuwJuw) Obi, Carelink’s owner, has an extensive background as a caregiver and a Registered Nurse. She uses her experience and desires to make a difference in the community to guide all Carelink services. Their services are centred upon love, respect and understanding. More than 70 percent of individuals report that they want to remain at home as they age. Carelink Home Care and its dedicated staff can help them do just that.
Boost Well-being with Fresh Air & Exercise
One of the best things about living on Vancouver Island is having nature right in our backyard. With summer just around the corner, it is a great time to take advantage of everything our island has to offer. Whether it is just a walk around the block or a hike up a mountain, the fresh air and exercise boost our well-being. So lace up your shoes and wear VoxxLife socks with HPT for enhanced balance and stability. Additional benefits include; enhanced pain relief and management, especially PDN pain and improved mobility.
Fall Prevention Devices
As we get older, we are more prone to falls that can result in severe injuries and broken bones. There are many fall prevention devices available to make it safer in and out of the home. These include: *A Security Pole & Curve Bar that offers a 2-in-1 safety solution. It combines a rotating grab bar with a transfer pole for ultimate fall protection. *A portable Handy Handle that helps you assist your loved ones to stand up safely. *The PT Bedcane that provides balance and support when getting out of bed. Let us help you find the right fall prevention products for you.
The Power of Learning Support
Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”. Research shows that our children and grandchildren’s learning and education have been negatively impacted during the last two years. Tutoring, summer camps and holistic learning support can help to mitigate these learning losses. Tutoring can strengthen subject comprehension, boost confidence, and build important learning skills with programs developed based on a student’s passion and talents. Summer Forest Camps can help by providing a safe place to socialize, learn, connect to nature and play in a small group setting. Contact us to learn more.
Manage Pain with Pilates
Kathleen came into Pilates with sore hips from a desk job and a long commute. She had been hesitant to try Pilates because she was self-conscious about her weight and was afraid that Pilates might hurt. Within three sessions, she said ‘This is fun’ and had much less pain and discomfort when walking and standing. Now, Kathleen smokes less, exercises more, has taken up gardening, and is far more confident with herself. She attends two to three Pilates classes a week. Contact Norah to book a private Pilates class. She will adapt Pilates to your needs and help you feel better.
Stay Active to Maintain Health
Being physically active can help with injury prevention, maintain health and improve mobility. If we don’t use our muscles or move our joints, we can “rust” just like a piece of machinery that is left to sit idle. Being active does not necessarily mean lifting heavy weights or running a marathon. It can be as simple as performing gentle prescribed exercises, mobility drills, and active release stretches that can help us maintain mobility and prevent injury. Making small changes in our routine can have huge impacts on whole-body health, the healing process and general well-being. Contact us – we can help you get started.
How Artificial Intelligence Helps With Hearing Loss
One of the reasons that makes it difficult to address hearing loss is that the way in which each individual experiences hearing loss can be a bit different, which is why a visit to a trained hearing professional is important. Different environments with varying amounts of noise adds an additional layer of complexity to the problem.
A hearing solution that works well for you for having a conversation at home may not work well in a noisy restaurant. If you have any experience with hearing loss, you may understand that the solution isn’t as simple as just making everything louder.
Hearing loss research has seen significant advancements from using artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a system that uses data to recognize patterns, which can then be applied to solve problems. With large amounts of data, AI is able to navigate through complex problems involving many variables.
We will take you through how AI has been used for hearing loss so far and the potential for AI to help with hearing loss in the future.
Current uses of AI in hearing loss
You may have already encountered the use of AI already without knowing it. A common use of AI is to recognize speech. This technology has been applied to provide automated closed captioning for video services to help those with hearing loss.
Some audiologists have started to also use AI to help fit hearing aids. In these cases, the audiologist would play different sounds for you, and software with AI functions would provide suggestions to tune the hearing aid.
To provide a more direct impact on hearing loss, AI is used in increasingly sophisticated hearing aids. Early uses of AI were used to create pre-trained models for different environments. The hearing aid would then have different modes with different frequencies preset for environments such as being at home, in restaurants, or in front of the television.
Newer hearing aids with AI are able to listen to the environment and automatically make adjustments as necessary. These hearing aids can actively lower background noise while also working to increase the volume of voices, making it easier to hear speech.
Future uses of AI in hearing loss
AI is being used to help achieve the aim of getting as close as possible to replicating how the brain hears sounds without hearing loss. Hearing aids with AI technology will automatically adjust to best match each individual’s hearing needs.
AI is able to create a balanced, personalized output by scanning the sounds in an environment, identifying the elements of different sounds, and understanding how to process each element. By listening to the voices that you hear often, the AI could emphasize voices from certain individuals while reducing others.
More advanced use of AI may be able to tackle some of the trickiest situations for people with hearing loss, such as focusing on conversations between multiple people in a noisy environment. Further in the future, to prioritize the voice of interest, which may constantly shift among speakers, the AI could determine which voice to focus on by tracking the neural activity of the brain.
Another possibility to focus on a particular speaker in the future would be to use augmented reality (AR) glasses, which is a pair of glasses that provides information to the wearer. Eye-tracking technology would allow the AI to know in which direction to focus while the glasses could provide automated captions to supplement the speech in case the wearer still has trouble making out the speech.
While the future is full of bright possibilities when applying AI to help with hearing loss, a lot of work is still required to get there. Luckily, we have seen considerable progress. Advanced hearing aids are already able to suppress unwanted noise to allow you to focus on voices. All it takes is a visit to a trained practitioner, such as the professionals at NexGen Hearing, to get a hearing aid expertly adjusted to your individual hearing needs.
Sources:
https://www.hearsoundly.com/guides/best-ai-hearing-aids
https://sfaudiology.com/the-future-of-hearing-devices-deep-neural-networks-artificial-intelligence/
Normal Forgetfulness or Dementia?
As we age, it’s normal to experience more frequent instances of memory loss. Some common symptoms of normal memory loss include transience, when the brain forgets some memories over time, and absentmindedness, where you may forget something because you weren’t focused on it. Other factors can also contribute to normal memory loss, such as depression and other mental health issues. Memory loss that involves the following can be cause for concern and should be addressed by a doctor: 1) Forgetting important information, like names. 2) Being extremely disoriented in unfamiliar environments. 3) Major personality changes like aggressiveness or impulsivity.
Canada’s Low Risk Gambling Guidelines
Have you heard of Canada’s Low-Risk Gambling Guidelines? Guideline 1) Gamble no more than 1% of household income: For example, a Household income of $70,000 before tax should gamble no more than $58 per month. Guideline 2) Gamble no more than 4 days per month, which works out to roughly once a week. Guideline 3) Avoid regularly gambling at more than 2 types of games: For example, lotteries and slots, scratch tickets and bingo, OR poker and VLTs. 3+ forms of gambling substantially increase the risk of developing a gambling problem. Check them out at GamblingGuidelines.ca #LRGG.
