CLEARWATER, Fla. — For most of her life, Elissa Shellman has been disabled. When she was 16 years old, Shellman fell into a coma. When she came out of it, Shellman had trouble moving on her own.
“They said I would be a vegetable the rest of my life and that my life would be short-spanned,” she said.
Over the years, Shellman has learned how to live independently and wants to keep doing so for as long as possible. She realizes in order to do that, she has to be mindful of what she’s eating.
“Eating the proper things and doing things to help, I find that in doing that when I go to the doctor, it would be for a checkup and I won’t have to be rushed to the hospital,” Shellman said.
Shellman has been working with a nutrition counselor through Neighborly Senior Care Network for the past two years, which has helped her build and maintain a healthier diet.
Older adults like Shellman are at higher risk for developing malnutrition, according to the Alliance for Aging Research. Seniors can become malnourished either by not eating enough or eating too much with not enough physical activity, the organization explained. Older adults are also more likely to have chronic conditions that put them at risk for malnutrition, including cancer, diabetes and Alzehimer’s.
For that reason, Anita Frankhauser, nutrition director for Neighborly, says a proper diet is vital to keep older adults healthy and independent.
“A lot of people know that you should follow a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise,” Frankhauser said. “But they may struggle with how do they change their lifestyle, or how to implement things that their doctor recommends.”
Neighborly recently launched a new online portal to help make it easier to book nutrition counseling sessions. About 160 seniors already take part in the program every year, according to Frankhauser.
Licensed dietitians can meet clients at their home or at the grocery store to talk through ways to improve their diet. Through Shellman’s counseling sessions, she was able to get to the root cause of recurring headaches she was dealing with for years.
“I didn’t know why I was having a headache every morning,” she said. “But it was too much sodium. And it could have gotten worse and went into something else detrimental.”
Neighborly’s nutrition counseling is free for anyone older than 60, but adults of any age can get a free consultation. Shellman admitted it was hard for her to accept help at first, but she’s glad she did – and encourages fellow seniors to do the same.
“Maybe I don’t know everything there is to know, but I got a real good start and it has impacted my life,” she said.
