When you think about survival, what comes to mind? Do you think of oxygen? Food? Shelter? Love? Did you consider your healthy blood supply? Most people take for granted their ability to create blood as a healthy individual. For several people, however, especially seniors, certain diseases and injuries cause their healthy blood supply to diminish. As a healthy person, how can you help them? Learn more about why blood donations matter for seniors and what you can do below!<\/p>\n
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According to a study by NCBI<\/a>, seniors face a higher risk of cancer. Seniors account for \u201c60% of newly diagnosed malignancies and 70% of all cancer deaths\u201d (NCBI)<\/a>. Like all other cancer patients, blood donations help seniors to live better during treatment.<\/p>\n Cancer patients often receive blood transfusions due to the nature of their treatments. When a cancer patient undergoes surgery, blood transfusion helps them to resupply and recover blood lost. For cancer patients in chemotherapy, their drugs attack healthy cells (including red and white blood cells) as much as they attack cancer cells. Chemotherapy makes it difficult for a patient\u2019s bone marrow and existing blood cells to keep up with the resulting loss of healthy blood. With the help of donors\u2019 blood platelets and other blood components, cancer patients can keep healthy quantities of blood.<\/a><\/p>\n *Key Point*<\/strong><\/em> Cancer patients cannot always sustain a healthy blood supply without the help of donors!<\/p>\n Traumatic injuries affect people of all ages, but seniors remain the most susceptible group of people, especially in the case of falls<\/a>. Many falls cause bruising or soreness, but some falls\u2013especially on concrete or slippery surfaces\u2013cause broken bones or gashes that lead to significant blood loss.<\/p>\n Beyond falls in the home, seniors usually experience more difficulties with driving as well. Struggles behind the wheel could in turn lead to more injury accidents on the road.\u00a0In both of these cases where blood loss happens, a blood transfusion can help to prevent any long term complications or death. Just one \u201cunit\u201d of blood provides the red blood cells needed to help these patients (AABB)<\/a>.<\/p>\n *Key Point*<\/strong><\/em> When medical professionals have enough supplies of clean blood, they can save lives!<\/p>\n Click here for our blog on preventing falls for seniors.<\/a><\/p>\n Many people with chronic diseases benefit from blood donations as well! Here are some of the most common diseases that affect seniors and how blood donations can help:<\/p>\n *Key Point*<\/strong><\/em> Blood donations help seniors \u201cadd years to life and life to years\u201d!<\/p>\n Learn more about helping seniors with diabetes with our Caregiver\u2019s Ultimate Checklist for Diabetes Management\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n When you think about survival, what comes to mind? Do you think of oxygen? Food? Shelter? Love? Did you consider your healthy blood supply? Most people take for granted their ability to create blood as a healthy individual. For several people, however, especially seniors, certain diseases and injuries cause their healthy blood supply to diminish. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aging","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seniorsolutionshomecare.com\/nashville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blood donations help to treat traumatic injuries<\/h3>\n
Blood donations help to treat chronic disease and infections<\/h3>\n
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So what can I do?<\/h3>\n
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