Our regular Sunday night dinners with my elderly father and his friend Ginny always include a drink with our meal. Usually it is red wine, although sometimes, particularly if we go out to eat, they opt for a vodka martini (with an olive AND a twist please). At ages 84 and 90, respectively, I figure they can do what they want. And after all, we provide the ride to and from their Florida continuing care retirement community, so no worries there.

But it never occurred to me that those drinks might actually be helping them. That’s right. According to a new study one or two alcoholic beverages a day may reduce a senior citizen’s risk of developing dementia by almost 40 percent. The study was presented this week at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, currently being held in Vienna, Austria.

These “moderate drinkers” who are 75 years of age or older had a lower risk of developing dementia than people who had more than two drinks a day and also a lower risk than those individuals who abstained from any alcohol completely, Dr. Kaycee Sink and her colleagues found. For the study, they asked more than 3,000 adults how often they drank and examined them every six months for up to six years for signs of memory loss or mental decline.

The findings aren’t a free pass for drinking among the elderly, the results showed. People who were already showing signs of memory problems deteriorated significantly faster if they drank alcohol, and the more they consumed the worse the symptoms became. Heavy drinkers, defined as those consuming more than 14 drinks a week, were almost twice as likely to develop dementia, researchers said.

“If you’re already drinking, you don’t need to cut back if you’re cognitively healthy, but we don’t have enough information to recommend you start drinking,” Kaycee Sink, assistant professor of medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said during a press conference. “The benefits increase as people move from mild to moderate levels of drinking, and then start to decline.”

Maybe this study will convince the folks in charge of senior living facilities to add a regular happy hour to their activity calendars!

I suppose these results also have implications for me and my fellow 40-something friends. We’ve known for a long time that a glass or two of red wine is good for our hearts. Now to think it can also stave off dementia is reason to celebrate – with a toast!

Lately, whenever I put on a pair of shoes, I think about my elderly father. As I stare at my choices – high heel, low heel, sandal, sneaker, black, white, pink or blue – I think about him putting on the same pair of brown fisherman sandals day after day, month after month. He only has one pair; not because he’s particularly picky, but because we have not been able to find another pair that meets his needs for comfort and function. Like a lot of senior citizens, his feet appear slightly swollen most of the time. Not enough to cause concern but enough to make it difficult to find suitable shoes. He needs them to be wide; he needs them to have a high rise (the opening from the sole to the top of the shoe); he needs them to be easy to put on; and most importantly, he need them to be safe. When he first moved to Florida about a year ago to move into a continuing care retirement community, he primary footwear was a pair of slip-on sandals. They met all the criteria except the most important one – safety. Without any support around his heel, the shoes forced him to walk in a shuffle, not really picking his feet up and often snagging on carpet.
 
Last September, he took a fall (unrelated to his choice of shoes), that forced him to spend several weeks in the nursing home section of his ccrc. Upon his release back to his independent living apartment, I decided it was time to get him new and better shoes. The pair we selected is a leather fishermen’s sandal with one very helpful feature- a velcro closure strap. At 84 years old and having had double hip replacement surgery several years ago, my father’s mobility is limited. There’s no way he could bend down long enough – and steady enough – to tie shoelaces. But he also can’t wear slip-on shoes that can’t be opened and then closed; they are just too tight for him to get on. So these fishermen sandals have been the perfect solution. He can sit in his chair, position the shoes just in front of his feet, and with some patient wiggling, get his feet in. Then he slowly reaches down and closes the velcro. The holes in the sides of the shoe also offer much-needed ventilation.

I tell you all this because it has only recently hit me how something that I take largely for granted – the ability to wear whatever shoes I want – can become a huge issue for senior citizens. Shoes that seem sturdy may actually contribute to falls for the elderly, according to a study by Dr. Carol Frey, an orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Frey studied 185 men and women. Among those who fell and were injured during the year of the study, 28% said that the shoes they were wearing had caused the fall. Sixty percent of those wearing sneakers said they fell because their shoes caught or dragged on the floor.

Here are some safety tips from orthopedic experts:

• Never wear shoes with slippery or worn outer soles. Also avoid shoes with smooth leather or plastic soles, which can be slippery on carpets, wood and tile floors, and wet surfaces. Some athletic shoes made with synthetic soles, which may be ideal for exercising in a gym, can be extremely slippery on a damp or wet surface.
   
• Avoid wearing shoes and slippers that are loose or ill-fitting.
   
• When walking on carpets, avoid wearing shoes with heavy rubber lugs that can catch on carpets, especially when they are worn by people who barely pick up their feet when they walk (exactly my father’s problem). The rubber tips on the toes of running shoes can also cause a stumble on a carpeted surface.
   
• For an all-around shoe, consider walking shoes, which provide good traction and support but do not have heavy soles or rubber over the toes.
   
• Although shoes with a lot of cushioning can make you feel as if you are walking on air, they can also make an older person unstable and are best avoided.
   
• Shoes that tie are safer than shoes that slip on the feet. Laced shoes can be adjusted to accommodate orthotics, braces and swelling of the feet. For those who lack dexterity, consider replacing cloth laces with elastic ones that hold the shoe firmly on the foot, but stretch enough to allow shoes to be slipped on and off without tying or untying the laces. (I am planning to have my father try out this type of laces on his next pair of shoes.)
   

I am currently talking to some companies that sell shoes specifically for the elderly about advertising on my Florida Senior Living Advisor website. Stay tuned for more on that.

Last night, like most Sunday nights, my 84-year-old father came over for dinner. And as is usually the case, he was accompanied by his girlfriend  Ginny, an amazing 90-year-old woman who lives in his continuing care retirement community. We all have different ideas of what constitutes “old age” or “elderly”. Ask my young children, and they would probably tell you old age starts in your 50s. Most of my 30- and 40-something friends would probably say anyone 75+ falls in that category. But there would be little  debate that a woman of age 90, like Ginny, is elderly. After spending nearly every Sunday evening with her for the past eight months, I am here to tell you otherwise.

Ginny is a vibrant, fit, sharp-minded woman who exemplifies everything I hope to be if I am fortunate enough to live that long. And I’ve finally figured out her secret. Ginny has discovered the Fountain of Youth. It’s not a place, and it’s not in a cream or an injection or a surgical procedure. The Fountain of Youth is in her head – and in all of our heads if we allow it to be.

Ginny is always “up.” Everything is wonderful in her world. Every week when she comes over, she gushes about how the meal is the best she’s ever had (even when I opt not to cook and order take-out), my children are amazing (as she listens to my three girls argue over the Wii), the weather is beautiful (not the word I’d use on a sticky hot Florida summer night), etc. Her favorite phrase is, “This is such a treat” – and she uses it often. Last night as she was saying good-night, she touched my arm and said, “This is really heaven in this home. Your kids, your family, it’s just heaven.” She verbalizes positive thoughts and she says them with sincerity. I believe her optimism is the secret to her youthfulness, and it’s starting to rub off on the rest of us as well. When we first started hosting my father and her for dinner, I think we thought of it more as a favor to them, to give them a chance to get out of their continuing care retirement community and have a change of scenery and food. Now I realize that my husband and I are the ones reaping the benefits.

What Ginny has taught us – or at least reminded us – is that there really is power in focusing on the positive. She has had her share of heartache, outliving three husbands, her first who died fairly young. Through it all, though, she has never lost her love of life and living. She has held interesting jobs, traveled the world, and continues to seek out new experiences (she is currently trying to convince my father that they should take a trip to Key West). Until recently, Ginny was an avid swimmer; now she stays fit by using the equipment in her senior facility’s exercise room. According to this article from WebMD, exercise is a key to staying sharp in old age.

Thanks to Ginny, I have clear evidence that I don’t need to buy into the fancy creams and procedures to retain my youth. Those are only superficial treatments (and one way or another – by 90, the wrinkles are there). The real secret to a vibrant, youthful life comes from within, from fostering a positive  attitude and mental acuity. The Fountain of Youth is much closer than I ever thought!

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For a comprehensive online database of senior living facilities in Florida, visit Florida Senior Living Advisor.