When considering home safety, we tend to think about physical areas like bathrooms. How old is your house, when was the last time you had your air ducts cleaned? Poor air quality contributes to illness. Dr. Shawn Weiss joins Suzanne Newman on the Answers for Elders Radio Show to talk about healthy indoor air quality, toxins, and allergens — environmental wellness, one of the eight foundational principles of senior wellness featured this summer in the Vitality Revolution podcast series.
Dr. Shawn says, "When we think about environmental safety, I'm thinking of extrinsic factors like reducing fall risk. But most of the people don't think about the other things that we look at in your environment, which are things that can make you sick. How old is your home? Do you have good ventilation? Are you changing furnace filters every 30 to 40 days? Are you doing an annual cleaning of your vents? How is it heated, electric, gas, or wood fire heat, which can leave lots of residue in the home?
"If you have an older home, you need to think about things like toxins and molds. Allergens can accumulate on many different surfaces: sofas, couches, curtains, pillows, carpet rugs. We want to make sure that we are not putting extra allergens into the environment. We also look at air quality and pollution. Are you downwind from something, a trash plant of some sort that will affect your overall health, especially things that can cause respiratory illnesses, or do you already have COPD? Were you a smoker at one point, or do you still smoke, or does somebody in the house smoke? Any time you're not paying attention to the toxins, you could be placing yourself at a greater risk."
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