Category Archives: Health & Fitness

Jenna Lord, director of nursing at Wesley Health Care Center, has received the 2021 Professional of the Year Award from LeadingAge New York. 

The Professional of the Year Award recognizes contributions of a professional working in the aging healthcare field toward the well-being of the elderly or chronically ill in his or her community. The award nomination is open to any long-term care, housing and services professional who demonstrates civic involvement as well as professional dedication, accomplishment and field expertise.

 “The Wesley Community congratulates Jenna on this outstanding recognition as the 2021 LeadingAge New York Professional of the Year,” said The Wesley Community CEO J. Brian Nealon. “Jenna consistently exhibits outstanding leadership and helps us provide compassionate senior care to our residents and their families. We are grateful to have her on our team.”

Lord is responsible for leading and supervising the nursing staff and overseeing the care provided to residents at the Wesley Health Care Center. She has extensive health care experience and has been an active member of the Wesley Health Care Center team since 2008. 

“I am honored and humbled to receive this award and to be recognized by my peers, administrators and LeadingAge New York as ‘professional of the year.’ I would not be able to achieve anything without the amazing team at Wesley,” said Lord. “Working alongside so many talented nurses, and caring for the aging, is something I consider a privilege.”

Lord’s dedication to the profession led to her recognition as Registered Nurse of the Year at Wesley Health Care Center in 2018. She received the honor following numerous peer nominations and an extensive review by a panel of administrators at The Wesley Community. 

For plant-based cooking and nutrition instructor Deb Czech, the ongoing COVID pandemic and its health impacts have expanded the reasons why people are starting to put more plants on their plate. 

Czech is the owner of Planted Platter of Saratoga Springs, a business providing plant-based cooking classes, coaching services, and customized workplace wellness programs. Planted Platter also collaborates with Capital Region nonprofits on plant-based cooking events for their members and clients.

To address rising consumer interest in plant-based diets, Planted Platter is offering a dozen online classes this fall that people can mix and match to their own health needs. 

“The fundamental principles of a whole-food, plant-based diet remain the same across all classes,” said Czech. “What changes is the presentation of medical information and research specific to a given condition, whether that’s Type 2 diabetes or heart disease or anxiety or menopause or something else.” 

By Christine Graf

After being closed for four months during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Capital District Sport & Fitness (CDSF) has expanded their facility at 21 Wood Road in Round Lake. 

Owners Mike Sirani and Dan Jones are Capital Region natives who met while on the baseball team at Springfield College. Both men have degrees in exercise science as well as extensive experience working with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes. 

Opened in June 2018, CDSF specializes in small group, semi-private training and offers customized workout programs that are developed based upon a client’s movement assessment, goals, health history, and injury history. With their 1,500-square-foot expansion, they are able to offer additional gym space as well as a baseball pitching cage that runs the length of the gym. 

A CDSF membership is not required to book the pitching cage coaching sessions that are available to athletes in middle school through college. 

By Christine Graf

According to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association, more than 40 percent of adults have reported gaining unwanted weight, an average of 29 pounds, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Saratoga County professional life and health coach Laura Conklin said that many people have turned to food for comfort during the pandemic. The owner of HELD Life & Health Coaching, Conklin offers individualized weight loss programs to her clients and works with them to uncover the root causes of their weight gain as well as their motivation for losing weight.

“If you are struggling with your health or weight, chances are that there are some things going on in your mind that need some balancing and reframing. When people come to me wanting to lose weight, we start getting into some core issues of what they believe about themselves. It’s about a deeper level of transformation than just body weight,” she said. “Without strong motivation, it’s easy to put aside all of the strategies and revert back to overeating.”

There is no one-size-fits-all model for weight loss. Conklin said there is often trial and error involved.

By Christine Graf
According to national data, doctors in the United States logged more than 1 billion virtual telemedicine appointments during 2020. Its usage peaked in April at which time 69 percent of all patient visits were virtual.
Saratoga Hospital Medical Group, a group of more than 250 providers practicing out of 20-plus locations, implemented a telemedicine platform in the spring of 2019.
“We had the capability, but found we weren’t using it,” said Julie Demaree, Saratoga Hospital director of informatics and data integrity. “We didn’t have much interest from our providers and patients.”
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 put the issue in a different light.
In mid-March, all providers in the group were trained on how to use the platform. In the two weeks that followed, 3,500 virtual visits were conducted.
“It was a learning curve for both patients and providers,” said Demaree. “I really give so much credit to our providers because they had to pivot very quickly. Delivering medicine through a camera is very different than doing it in person. They also had to take on a new role of being tech support for patients.”
At Glens Falls Hospital, no telemedicine system was in place when the pandemic began. As a result, administrators had to scramble to get a system in place.
“This was all new to all of us,” said Patti Hammond, vice president for physician practice management. “One of the reasons was that the insurance companies including Medicare were not paying for virtual visits as though it was an in-person visit. Because of COVID, there were some emergency approvals, and the insurance companies said they would pay for that visit just as though the patient was in your office setting.”
In a matter of 48 hours, Glens Falls Hospital had a telemedicine system up and running. The hospital uses the Doxy.me platform and pays a monthly fee for each provider who uses the tool.

Saratoga Hospital recently completed a $5 million expansion of its central sterile processing department to accommodate significant growth in complex surgical procedures at the hospital and its Saratoga Surgery Center in Wilton.
The renovations increased the central sterile processing space by about 80 percent and added the latest disinfection and sterilization equipment, officials said.
The number of surgeries performed at Saratoga Hospital and Saratoga Surgery Center continues to increase each year. Much of the growth is in minimally invasive procedures that involve smaller, more sophisticated instruments that can be more challenging to clean and decontaminate, according to the hospital.
“Each instrument has to be cleaned differently, and each is sterilized and disinfected to meet the highest standards,” said Clay Landry, certified central processing director at Saratoga Hospital.
The department runs 24/7 to clean and decontaminate hundreds of surgical instruments used each day in the hospital’s surgical pavilion and Saratoga Surgery Center, as well as in the endoscopy suites at both locations.