Clackamas County has initiated a support service for seniors: a 24/7 "warm line" for support, resources, and volunteers to listen for older adults experiencing loneliness, isolation, and/or depression. Crisis support is also available.

503.200.1633

Calls from all counties, including Washington and Multnomah, will be answered! Visit seniorlonelinessline.org to learn more.

Fruits and vegetables add important nutrients to your diet and provide important health benefits — and they're tasty, too! Sometimes, raw fruit and vegetables can contain harmful germs that make you and your family sick, like Slamonella, E. coli, and listeria. According to the CDC, nearly half of foodborne illnesses in the United States are caused by germs on fresh produce. While anyone can get a foodborne illness (sometimes called 'food poisoning'), individuals in certain groups are more likely to get sick and to have a more serious illness than others. The CDC says that those groups are:

• Children younger than 5 years of age

• Pregnant women

• Adults aged 65 and older

• People with weakened immune systems

The CDC advises that the safest produce is cooked; the next safest is washed. Check out their infographic below for tips on keeping your fruits and veggies safe to eat, and visit their website to learn more and be alerted to outbreaks of infections linked to fruits and vegetables.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) related emergency preparedness and outbreak response has become one of the most significant and crucial public health issues in recent history. Emergencies can include natural disasters (for example, hurricanes, floods, and droughts), man-made disasters (for example, chemical spills into waterways), and outbreaks (for example, infections linked to water exposure after a disaster). Creating an emergency water supply for you and your family is an essential part of emergency preparations.
 
Store at least 1 gallon of water per day for each person and each pet. You should consider storing more water than this for hot climates, for pregnant women, and for persons who are sick.
 
Store at least a 3-day supply of water for each person and each pet. Try to store a 2-week supply, if possible. Observe the expiration date for store-bought water. Replace non-store-bought water every 6 months.
 
Store a bottle of unscented liquid household chlorine bleach (label should say it contains between 5-6% and 8.25% of sodium hypochlorite) to disinfect your water, if necessary, and to use for general cleaning and sanitizing. The CDC provides specific directions on how to disinfect water with unscented household liquid chlorine bleach.
 
In emergency situations, listen to local officials to find out if your water is safe. If it is not, use bottled water if possible; bottled water is the safest choice for drinking and all other uses. If bottled water is not available, water contaminated with germs can often can be made safe to drink by boiling, adding disinfectants, or filtering. Water contaminated with fuel or toxic chemicals will not be made safe by boiling or disinfection. Use bottled water or a different source of water if you know or suspect that your water might be contaminated with fuel or toxic chemicals.

• Odds Are, They're Taking Your Blood Pressure All Wrong

• Protecting Ourselves Against Mosquito Bites

• Men's Health

• Discussions Decisions, & Documents for End-of-Life

Our Health Ministry helps with issues of health, healing, and wholeness. We work with other Holy Trinity ministries to encourage and foster healthy habits for the body, mind, and spirit. You do not need to be a healthcare professional to be a member of the Health Ministry!

The Health Ministry meets on the second Monday of the month in the Fireside Room at 9:00am (after the 8:15am daily Mass). 

This year's flu season is well underway, and all regions of the country are seeing elevated levels of the illness. According to the CDC, Oregon is one of 19 states currently facing high influenza-related activity.

What can you do to protect yourself and your family? If you haven't already, get vaccinated — it's not too late. The flu vaccination is always the best way to avoid developing the illness, and the CDC recommends that everyone six months and older get the vaccine each year.

Getting vaccinated not only helps to protect you, but it also helps to protect the people around you — especially those who are more vulnerable like babies, young children, older people, and pregnant women. For some children aged six months through eight years, two doses of the flu vaccine are needed for adequate protection.

Visit the CDC's website to learn about the flu and how to protect yourself and your loved ones this season.

Preventing falls for an elderly loved one is a concern for any caregiver and family member. Though many falls do not cause injuries, according to the CDC one out of five falls does cause a serious injury — from broken bones to head and brain injuries.

The MedicAlert Foundation gives several suggestions on how to create a fall prevention plan and steps to help reduce falls for the person/people in your care. We also recommend you look into ConsumerReports' overview on how to choose a medical alert system.

The CDC can help you learn more about older adult falls and how to help prevent them.

Choosing the right assisted living community for your loved one(s) can be a difficult challenge. Below are a few articles selected by our Health Ministry team that provide tips, advice, and information on making such important decisions.

• Five Steps for Choosing the Right Assisted Living Community (Penelope Wang, Consumer Reports, October 2018)

• When to Move from Independent Living to Assisted Living (Elaine Howley, U.S. News, August 2019)

• 11 Ways to Afford the Assisted Living Care You Need (Tobie Stanger, Consumer Reports, August 2017)

• Assisted Living Facilities: Weighing the Options (AARP, updated October 2019)

"I cannot recommend highly enough the 'Powerful Tools for Caregivers' training program. . . developed in Portland, Oregon."

~Gail Sheehy, Passages in Caregiving

Powerful Tools for Caregivers is a six-week educational series designed to help unpaid family caregivers take care of themselves while caring for a relative or friend with a chronic illness. Caregivers develop a wealth of self-care tools to reduce personal stress, communicate their needs effectively in challenging situations, deal with difficult emotions, and make tough caregiving decisions. You will benefit from this class whether you are helping a parent, spouse, or friend who lives at home, in a nursing home, or across the country.



Find upcoming classes here!

What can I do?

• Use an insect repellent registered with the EPA and know how to apply it safely

• Learn how to best prevent/avoid ticks for your family, your pets, and around your house

• If you find a tick on your family or pets, remove it immediately

• Use screens on windows and doors, and repair holes in screens to keep mosquitos outside