As we age, our brains change, but Alzheimer’s dis­ease and re­lat­ed de­men­tias are not an in­evitable part of age­ing. In fact, up to 40% of de­men­tia cas­es may be pre­vent­ed or de­layed. It helps to un­der­stand what’s nor­mal and what’s not when it comes to brain health.

When it comes to COVID-19, the dis­ease caused by the new coro­n­avirus, old­er peo­ple are es­pe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to se­vere ill­ness. Re­search is show­ing that adults 60 and old­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly those with pre­ex­ist­ing med­ical con­di­tions, es­pe­cial­ly heart dis­ease, lung dis­ease, di­a­betes or can­cer are more like­ly to have se­vere — even dead­ly — coro­n­avirus in­fec­tion than oth­er age groups.

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is caus­ing un­told fear and suf­fer­ing for old­er peo­ple across the world. Be­yond its im­me­di­ate health im­pact, the pan­dem­ic is putting old­er peo­ple at greater risk of pover­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion and iso­la­tion. It is like­ly to have a par­tic­u­lar­ly dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on old­er peo­ple in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries.” - UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­to­nio Guter­res

Watch­ing a par­ent age or see­ing some­one change dras­ti­cal­ly due to ill­ness can be dev­as­tat­ing. Har­vard Health re­ports, “Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 per­cent of care­givers in­di­cat­ed they don’t see their doc­tor reg­u­lar­ly be­cause of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.” Main­tain­ing your own well­be­ing is cru­cial, but of­ten dif­fi­cult. If you are not sleep­ing well, ex­er­cis­ing, or feel your­self be­com­ing reclu­sive, speak to a health care pro­fes­sion­al about de­pres­sion. It can hit any­one, at any time.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has un­doubt­ed­ly af­fect­ed us all, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents em­pha­siz­ing chal­lenges sur­round­ing the fragili­ty of our men­tal health. A re­cent re­port out of Cana­da, re­vealed three out of four par­ents ex­pe­ri­enced con­cerns and wor­ries about bal­anc­ing child­care, their child’s school­ing and their own pro­fes­sion­al work ir­re­spec­tive of the child’s age. More than half of par­ents sur­veyed re­port­ed in­creas­ing dif­fi­cul­ty in man­ag­ing their child’s emo­tions as well as their own.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has changed a lot of things: the way we in­ter­act with per­sons, our sched­ules, dig­i­tal screen time, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, fi­nan­cial pres­sures and more so, our stress and fa­tigue lev­els. For some, these changes have not been for the bet­ter.

Mere months ago, in Jan­u­ary, our coun­try lost a 14-year-old stu­dent to sui­cide. Ref­er­enc­ing the Sun­day Guardian ar­ti­cle, “Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, the stu­dent and a rel­a­tive al­leged­ly ar­gued over his school­work be­fore she left the house to pur­chase food. Up­on her re­turn about an hour-and-a-half lat­er, she found him with a ban­dana wrapped around his neck and tied to a door­knob.”

In this un­prece­dent­ed time that we are all ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, it is im­por­tant to not on­ly ex­press your­self, but al­so to find ways to ease the stress while so­cial dis­tanc­ing due to COVID-19. For fam­i­lies im­pact­ed by a se­ri­ous health con­di­tion, the pan­dem­ic and its as­so­ci­at­ed stres­sors may be par­tic­u­lar­ly acute. I would like to share with you sug­gest­ed ways to help you ex­press what you are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dur­ing this time and give you an out­let to help light­en the mo­not­o­ny of stay­ing in­doors every day.

You have wait­ed nine months for your new­born to ar­rive. You ate well, nav­i­gat­ed the anx­i­ety of be­ing preg­nant dur­ing a pan­dem­ic, took your pre­na­tal vi­t­a­mins, at­tend­ed ap­point­ments and did your best to keep your­self healthy. Now that your ba­by has ar­rived, how do you keep him or her healthy dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic?

If you’re go­ing through menopause dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis, or if some­one you love is, you may be won­der­ing if the nov­el Coro­n­avirus af­fects menopausal women.

Poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome (PCOS) is a con­di­tion in which the ovaries pro­duce an ab­nor­mal amount of an­dro­gens, male sex hor­mones that are usu­al­ly present in women in small amounts. The name poly­cys­tic ovary syn­drome de­scribes the nu­mer­ous small cysts (flu­id-filled sacs) that form in the ovaries. How­ev­er, some women with this dis­or­der do not have cysts, while some women with­out the dis­or­der do de­vel­op cysts.

Jenelle Thongs' strut on the cat­walk is fierce. When she speaks she ex­udes friend­ly con­fi­dence, ever so of­ten eas­ing in­to a smile that ful­ly re­veals strik­ing white teeth against her smooth, ebony skin. The Miss Supra­na­tion­al Trinidad and To­ba­go 2020 ti­tle­hold­er ad­mits that she has come a long way from her child­hood per­sona of a lit­tle tomboy who felt un­com­fort­able in her own skin.