Staying on Top of Your Health When Vision Changes

Hadley

Staying on Top of Your Health When Vision Changes

Presented by Ricky Enger

Ricky Enger: When you're monitoring your health, you need quick and easy access to the measurements you care about. But what happens when you can't see the numbers on the monitor or the scale? In this episode, Steve Kelly joins us as we discuss keeping track of health metrics. I'm Ricky Enger, and this is Hadley Presents. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve Kelley: Hey, Ricky, delighted to be here.

Ricky Enger: I am delighted to have you. So, for those who don't know, if you're new to Hadley Presents, Steve is one of our practical help specialists. I'm so happy to have him on my team. What we're talking about today and you can't really get more practical help than talking about keeping track of those daily measurements that you might care about. Or maybe you really don't want to know that number on the scale, but you still have to do it, right?

Steve Kelley: Well, they say you do. Yeah. Yeah.

Ricky Enger: I'm actually curious, Steve, are you a person who will keep track of this stuff or do you wait until it gets to that point where you really can't ignore something, like you're really feeling off and then you think maybe I should take my temp or maybe I should do something?

Steve Kelley: It kind of depends. It probably depends on how much pain I'm in at the moment, although I do try to keep track of my weight more just like, oh gosh, have I lost those two pounds I wanted to, that sort of thing.

Ricky Enger: Yeah, that makes sense. I'm similar. I keep track of certain things whether I want to or not. And I think even if you don't really want to, it helps to figure out how you might do it so that you're not trying to think through, how am I going to know if I have a fever when you're already feeling way off? I think what we'll do is just talk about a few metrics that you might want to keep track of and then how you can go about it. And what I like about this is that I tend to always go for the high-tech approach. I like it and I think it's fun. And Steve, as much as you're into technology, you tend to try the low-tech stuff first, right?

Steve Kelley: Oh my god, you know me too. Well, yes, I would say that that's true.

Ricky Enger: And that makes the perfect balance because that's what those of you listening are going to do as well. There are going to be some of you who are all about figuring out how do I make such and such work with my smartphone? And then some of you are thinking, no smartphone, I don't want that. Don't need that. Just let me get the measurement I want. I guess let's start with if you have to take your temperature. For me, this is going to be either a talking thermometer or an app-based thermometer, and I'll talk a little bit about each of those in a second. But for you, Steve, how are you going to do this? When I'm thinking about the thermometer, it seems like that screen is really, really small.

Steve Kelley: Yeah, it's totally small and it's definitely going to be done with a handheld magnifier and under decent lighting. There are times I know that there's one that you can kind of just put up against your forehead and a partner or family member can read that off pretty quickly. And so sometimes that happens in our household as well. But for the most part, it's going to be done with a magnifying glass and a lot of other things. For me, Ricky, the other thing that I might do is that I might actually take a picture of it with my smartphone and then enlarge it as needed so that I can read it. And I'll probably do that with other things as well, but that is kind of like a backup for me.

Ricky Enger: That's pretty clever actually. These are things that I wouldn't think about. My first thought would be, sure, get a magnifier, but then you're holding the magnifier over the thing and if the reading disappears and the thing turns off because it's conserving power, you're done with it, then what do you do? So actually, taking a picture makes a lot of sense. For me, I have used a talking thermometer, and we'll have a link to at least one of these in the show notes. I have found that for whatever reason, the talking thermometer does indeed talk, and it does take a measurement, and that measurement may or may not be accurate. So, what I've done is number one, make sure that it is at least consistent with itself, if that makes any sense. So, if I take two or three readings, I want those to be the same because I don't think my body temperature is going to be fluctuating that much in that limited space of time.

So that's the first thing that I will do. And then the second thing, and I kind of take this approach with all of my measurements is that I am with a healthcare professional at some point and they're doing those measurements. I'll bring my thermometer along during that yearly checkup or whatever it is just so that I can measure it against what the healthcare professional’s one says. And that way I know, hey, it's off by a degree, but it's consistently off by a degree. So, I can have a general idea of what the truth is when I get that measurement.

Steve Kelley: Yeah, what a great idea. I think a lot of the consumer stuff that we get, this probably holds true for scales as well, they're going to be off a little bit, but that's a great way to calibrate them with something that a professional has.

Ricky Enger: I eventually got a thermometer that works with an app instead with my smartphone. And I guess the upside for this is that everyone can use the same thermometer just as you would otherwise, and it can sync to these different profiles and it's nice if for whatever reason, I didn't want that spoken aloud. That's less true for a thermometer and definitely more so for a scale. Yes, then I can have it synced to that app. So, when it comes to a scale, is your approach similar for getting the reading off the scale? Now those screens tend to be a little bit bigger, but maybe it's still kind of that same approach. Is it?

Steve Kelley: Well, embarrassingly, yes. And it's kind of an old scale that's got an LED screen on it. And I think when I first got it, it had a nice big LED screen that I was probably able to read, but here we are years later and it's less easy to read. So, what I'm going to do then is I'm going to use the camera on my smartphone to take a look at that and sometimes just snap a picture and then blow it up so that I can read it. But you could also use a monocular also. I think in a situation like that, just a small handheld telescope or something like that to bump it up. But again, kind of like what we were talking about with the thermometer, that's one of those things where when I replace it, I'll replace it with one that's a talking scale.

Ricky Enger: And the talking scales have come quite ways from what they used to be. Now they can measure a lot of different things, so not just your weight, but they're doing some things to calculate what your body mass index is or in some cases how much water that scale is detecting in your body. But they still do the very important thing of announcing your weight and they have volume controls, so it's not from one to 10 kind of volume control. It's more of a low, high, and then announce to the whole block level of how loud that is. And it's good that it has that loudest setting because if you are having difficulty hearing something, you don't want to be trying to bend down to that speaker and listen as it says, your weight. Now I also of course have a scale. I actually have a couple of them that sync to an app.

The reason I have a couple of them is because they tend to measure different things. And so, if you have a smartphone and if you either have concerns about announcing things to the world or you just want to be able to have these metrics stored in your phone in that health app. Apple and Android do have a health app where various things are tracked. The app-based scale can be great for this. And what I really like about it for the scale, I can step on the scale, do the measurement, and if I were a person in that position of I'm still trying to figure out how to use my smartphone, it's not always super straightforward. I love using a smart assistant for something in that case, because these apps sync with your phone and you can just ask that smart assistant, what was my weight today? And it will tell you. And that's really, really nice. If again, opening that app or looking at it, making sure that you're seeing everything, maybe that's problematic for you.

Steve Kelley: Yeah, that sounds like it streamlines the whole thing and just makes it easy. So, for example, you might ask Siri about it or the Google Assistant or something like that.

Ricky Enger: Exactly. Blood pressure is another one of these things that I never used to think about at all, and now I do. So, if you are measuring your blood pressure at home, these two tend to have big screens, but there are talking ones and app-based ones as well. We'll have links to a couple of those in the show notes. And I think this one more so than any other one, every single blood pressure device tends to do its measuring a little differently, and it is so important to make sure that you've kind of synced to that with what the measurement that a healthcare professional is giving you because they can be off by 15 to 20 points, which is a huge, huge deal. But if you understand, oh my blood pressure isn't really that, it's just how this machine measures and it stays consistent, then I think you're okay. Have you ever used one of these, whether it's a talking one or even just one that you're kind of looking down at the screen for?

Steve Kelley: I have in the past, but usually it's not for me. I'm someone who has relatively low blood pressure, but as a vision rehab therapist, I often have worked with people in the past on glucose meters and blood pressure monitors and that sort of thing. So, I've kind of used both one with a large print monitor, and again, they're okay. It really depends on the lighting. I really think for something like that, I would probably lean right from the outset with a talking one. They've been around for a while and they're pretty good and they don't add a whole lot of cost. So, I think that that's one of the easiest ways to go. Now it sounds like I'm going to guess that you can probably sync them to your phone and do the same sort of thing where you're kind of able to monitor it as time goes on.

Ricky Enger: Exactly. And that's nice. There's one called Omron that will sync with your phone. It doesn't talk, but it does keep track of those metrics. And it'll tell you in the app, this is hypertension stage one, or this is low, or I detected heart arrhythmia or whatever it is, and it will go ahead and sync with that health app. So, you can ask your smart assistant about it. But for the talking ones, they've come a long way as well because they will announce those same kinds of things. Whatever it detects. If it is normal low hypertension stage, whatever, or if it detected an abnormality or if it didn't measure correctly, which can sometimes happen, it'll give you that error allowed, which is nice. And the other thing that these talking blood pressure monitors can do is you can review your measurements over the past 30 days or the past 90 days because they placed them in memory. And that's really nice because who's going to remember what their blood pressure was a week ago? But if you can use that device to tell you so much, the better.

Steve Kelley: So, it's actually stored in the memory on the device. You don't have to have it connected to a smartphone.

Ricky Enger: Yes.

Steve Kelley: Oh, that's perfect. Because a lot of folks aren't using their smartphone or maybe they're not at the point where it's really accessible to them. So that's a great feature.

Ricky Enger: Absolutely. And you can take these in to your healthcare professional not only to be able to measure against their device, but also they do have a screen on them even though they talk. So, it's not so specialized that no one could use it. But you mentioned just a bit ago working with people who are using glucose meters. So, if you've got diabetes and you need a way to track that, there are approaches for this. Which ones have you seen people use? Steve? Is it a talking one or something with large print or what is it?

Steve Kelley: It was primarily a talking one. And I think the one we were using, and again this goes back a few years, was probably the prodigy because I think that that was one of the first ones that was talking. And it was interesting because at the time too, I believe they were more expensive and they were often not the ones that were given to patients. Usually, they were given an inexpensive one, so they would have to advocate for themselves. But I suspect that they have come a long way in terms of the number of ones that are out there that are available that have speech output at least that would be my hope.

Ricky Enger: Interestingly enough, it turns out that the Prodigy is still the gold standard, and thankfully they have addressed the issue of being able to get that through insurance. I think the cost has come down and it's a little easier to advocate for that. Now if you've just become diabetic and you're still figuring out, or maybe you've been diabetic for a while, but you're still figuring out, well, how do I get the blood to the strip? That is something that number one, Hadley has a workshop on that. So we go through some tips and tricks that you might use, but also if you work with your diabetes education professional, they can give you some tips and tricks as well for making sure that blood drop gets on the strips so you're not wasting a bunch of them having a difficult time seeing where that drop is meant to go.

Steve Kelley: What's great in our state too was the diabetic educators oftentimes would call in vision rehab therapists too, so we could work with folks. It was great because a lot of times the client or patient may not have the opportunity to see the diabetes educator on a weekly basis or something like that, whereas we could and we could spend the time practicing. So that might be something else that a person thinks about or asks about, what are the other alternatives to practice with this? Because sometimes it does take a little bit of practice to get that piece of it down.

Ricky Enger: And if you are either having a little trouble with that or you're in a position where you're thinking, I don't want to do these sticks all the time, I would love to move on to something like a continuous glucose monitor. Those are available now and they do sync with a smartphone app. They essentially will measure, I think every five minutes or every 15 minutes depending on which one you have. And they are relatively accessible. Now, there's a couple of things that you do have to think about when using them. One, of course, you do need that smartphone in order to be able to have the app, but the other thing that you've got to think through is you change these, I forget exactly what you call them, but the thing that tracks, it's placed on the back of your upper arm and you replace that every 14 days.

And so, the process of getting it attached to yourself is pretty accessible, but you do have to connect it to the app every 14 days. This is one of those things where there's a four-digit code and there's also the app has a way that you can get something in frame where it automatically grabs the code. So, I think the most not straightforward part of the process is doing that part of it with low or no vision, do you have someone to read you that code really quickly? Can you use the magnifier on your phone? Can you turn on Zoom or what have you to get it zoomed into either that code that you enter manually or kind of get it framed the way you want it to. And once that's out of the way, again, you can ask your smart assistant, what's my blood sugar right now?

Steve Kelley: It sounds like it might be a little tricky at the outset, but something like that can be a real game changer for somebody who has sometimes a very unpredictable glucose readings, which isn't that unusual, but something like this where you've got that constant monitoring that's just huge over what was available again 10 or 12 years ago.

Ricky Enger: Absolutely. And if you are still struggling with getting that blood on the strip consistently, I wasted six strips and finally I got it. And if that just becomes such drudgery, it's good to know that this is another way you can approach it. So what I wanted to accomplish with this podcast, I guess, was just to let people know what might be available that you're of, if these are things that you're struggling with, and certainly we haven't covered all of the health metrics that you might want to track, but this can give you an idea of how to think about it, some different approaches that might be available. And the one thing that we didn't touch on so much is if you get this measurement and if you need to keep track of it, let's say that your device doesn't have that memory or you're not really familiar with how to navigate through that memory and see all these past readings. So, if it's not being stored in your phone automatically, what are some ways that people can get that measurement and keep track of it in a way that's then easier to reference later?

Steve Kelley: You want Steve’s low vision approach?

Ricky Enger: Absolutely.

Steve Kelley: Well, get yourself a nice felt tip marker and put it in large print. And again, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. But these days I would probably go to some sort of audio recorder, and there's two that I recommend. I use an Android phone, so I have a free app called Hi-Q Recorder, and it is free from the Play Store, but what I like about it is I put it on the home screen. So, you just touch it, it opens up, and then you record what you need. What I would use that recorder for is something really quick. The other thing for somebody who's not using a smartphone, Ricky, use a recorder, like an easy-to-use recorder, like the micro speak. I think it's $70 from most places. And you might even be surprised; I think I did see it on one of the box stores. Normally I would suggest independent living aids or LS&S or one of those places. But what's so nice about that too is again, it's an easy-to-use recorder, and I would just keep track of the recordings on that. You can do it simultaneously and then if you need to write them down later, or you could even take the recorder into the doctor's office with you and play some of those things back. So that's the way I would approach that.

Ricky Enger: I think that's really helpful, especially if you're in that stage where I can't quite read my writing anymore and the smartphone is not my best friend yet, but I still need to be able to keep track of these things both for myself and for my doctor. That's a pretty straightforward way to get it done.

Steve Kelley: And I think for some of these things, depending on what's going on, accuracy is critical. So, if you're really at the point where you're having difficulty reading your own writing, I know I am. There are a lot of times when I have difficulty with it, which is why I would use the recorder, that's going to be more accurate for me.

Ricky Enger: Yeah, absolutely. And definitely more accurate than depending on your own memory because that can get difficult.

Steve Kelley: And frankly convenient too because it's like, okay, where is that bold line pen? Which drawer is it in? Blah, blah, blah. So I usually have my phone, and I think for somebody who's not a phone user who is going to be recording this stuff, say on a micro speak, they're going to have that recorder in their backpack or their purse or their pocket too, because they're going to be using it in the same way. So, I think that that is just a lot more convenient overall.

Ricky Enger: Well, I think this has been a nice, informative discussion. Whether you want to keep track of things or you have to keep track of things, at least it helps to know that there are ways to do it when you need to and that you're not going to be left scrambling. If you really need to take that measurement now, you can at least think through, well, how am I going to do that? We will have links to some examples of all of these things, both talking and app-based measurement devices that you can check out. And if you have something that we didn't mention or you have maybe a recommendation for a particular device, we would love to hear from you. So, we'll have that contact info at the end of the show, Steve, it's always fun to chat with you.

Steve Kelley: Yeah, thanks for the invite, Ricky. I enjoyed being here.

Ricky Enger: Yeah, I appreciate your input as always. And until next time, thanks so much for dropping by. Got something to say. Share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents or make suggestions for future episodes. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected]. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T at HadleyHelps.org or leave us a message at 847-784-2870. Thanks for listening.