Growing older gets talked about in some pretty gloomy ways.
Suddenly everyone has advice about what you shouldn’t eat, where you might fall, what you might forget, and all the things you’re apparently supposed to stop doing.
We’d like to offer a different perspective.
September is Healthy Aging® Month, and it’s a good reminder that healthy aging isn’t about trying to turn back the clock. It’s about taking care of yourself so you can keep participating in the life you enjoy.
Here in Southeast Idaho, that might mean walking along the river in Idaho Falls, learning something new in Pocatello, visiting family in Rexburg, enjoying the outdoors in Driggs, gardening in Blackfoot, or simply feeling confident enough to keep doing the everyday things that make home feel like home.
Aging is normal. The goal isn’t to be afraid of it.
The goal is to stay curious, pay attention to changes, take reasonable precautions, and ask for support when you need it.
In this article:
- What Is Healthy Aging Month?
- Stay Curious About Your Own Community
- Keep Moving—But Make Movement Fit Your Life
- Pay Attention to the Little Changes
- Protect Your Vision and Hearing as You Age
- Connection Is Part of Healthy Aging, Too
- Healthy Aging Looks Different Across Southeast Idaho And Here’s Where to Turn
- A Simple Healthy Aging September Checklist
What Is Healthy Aging Month?
September Is Healthy Aging® Month was created by Carolyn Worthington, publisher of Healthy Aging® Magazine, to encourage adults to focus on the positive aspects of growing older.
The Healthy Aging® Month campaign focuses on practical ways adults can improve their physical, mental, social, and financial well-being rather than treating aging as something to fear.
This year’s theme, “Curiosity Has No Age Limit,” fits especially well here, staying curious about your own health, your own community, and what comes next is really the thread running through this whole article.
That approach feels especially appropriate for us.
Healthy aging doesn’t require reinventing your entire life. Sometimes it starts with being interested in what comes next.
If you’re looking for somewhere simple to begin, Healthy Aging® also offers 10 tips for Healthy Aging Month centered around making positive changes and looking at aging with a fresh perspective.
Stay Curious About Your Own Community
You don’t have to travel far to try something new.
Southeast Idaho has plenty of opportunities to keep learning, moving, and connecting with other people.
You might:
- Visit the Museum of Idaho or walk the Idaho Falls River Walk.
- Attend a community class, lecture, senior-center activity, or local event.
- Explore a new park or walking path.
- Try a beginner-friendly activity such as pickleball, yoga, tai chi, or swimming.
- Pick up an old hobby you haven’t touched in years.
- Volunteer for a community organization or school.
- Learn a new phone app that makes staying connected with family easier.
And if pickleball isn’t your thing, that’s okay too. Healthy aging doesn’t require owning a paddle.
The important part is continuing to engage with the world around you.
Keep Moving: But Make Movement Fit Your Life
Physical activity doesn’t have to mean an intense workout.
Walking to the mailbox counts. Gardening counts. Playing with the grandkids counts. So does practicing exercises recommended by your physical therapist.
The goal is to find movement that is appropriate for your abilities and that you can comfortably incorporate into everyday life.
If pain, weakness, dizziness, balance problems, or a recent illness have made activity more difficult, don’t simply push through it. Talk with your primary care physician about what level and type of activity is appropriate for you.
For some people recovering from a fall, illness, hospitalization, or surgery, home health physical or occupational therapy may also be recommended. A therapist can come to your home, work with you on strength, balance, and safe movement in the spaces you actually live in, and help rebuild the confidence to get back to your regular routine; whether that’s the mailbox, the garden, or the River Walk.
Pay Attention to the Little Changes
Healthy aging isn’t about worrying over every ache or forgotten name.
But it does mean noticing when something that used to be easy starts becoming harder.
Maybe you’ve started holding onto furniture when you walk through the house.
Maybe getting into the shower suddenly feels less steady.
Maybe you’re having more trouble reading medication labels.
Or perhaps Mom still insists she’s “perfectly fine,” but you’ve noticed unopened mail piling up or the same question coming up several times during a conversation.
Those changes don’t automatically mean something serious is wrong.
They do mean they’re worth talking about.
Regular conversations with your primary care physician can help determine whether a change is simply part of aging, something that can be addressed with a small adjustment, or something that deserves a closer look.
Protect Your Vision and Hearing as You Age
Seeing well affects much more than reading a book or recognizing a familiar face.
Vision can influence everyday activities, mobility, medication management, driving, and the ability to continue doing things independently.
The National Eye Institute’s Healthy Aging Month resources offer information specifically designed to help older adults understand vision changes and protect their eye health as they age.
One particularly important distinction: getting older does not automatically mean significant vision loss is inevitable. Certain eye diseases become more common with age, which makes appropriate preventive care and early detection especially important.
The National Eye Institute recommends paying attention to your eye health as you get older. That can include regular comprehensive dilated eye exams based on your individual risk, protecting your eyes from the sun, eating a balanced diet, staying physically active, managing conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and avoiding smoking.
You can find additional information through the National Eye Institute’s vision and aging resources.
If you notice a new or significant change in your vision, don’t assume it’s simply part of getting older. Talk with your eye-care professional or primary care physician about what you’re experiencing.
Don’t Overlook Your Hearing
Hearing changes tend to get less attention than vision changes, but they’re just as common. According to the National Institute on Aging, age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is one of the most common conditions affecting older adults, and it typically comes on so gradually that it’s easy not to notice at first.
Untreated hearing loss can make it harder to catch a doctor’s instructions, hear a smoke alarm or the phone, or follow a conversation at a family dinner—which can lead to withdrawing from the very connection and activities this article is about.
If you’ve been turning the TV up a little more each year, asking people to repeat themselves, or avoiding noisy gatherings, it’s worth mentioning to your primary care physician or scheduling a hearing evaluation. It’s a simple check, and often a fixable one.
Connection Is Part of Healthy Aging, Too
We often talk about healthy aging in terms of blood pressure, exercise, medications, and doctor’s appointments.
Those things matter.
But so does having someone to laugh with.
Social connection can come from family dinners, church, community events, senior centers, volunteering, neighborhood conversations, hobbies, or even learning how to use technology to stay in touch with people who don’t live nearby.
Ask questions. Tell stories. Listen. Call someone you haven’t talked to lately. Learn how to use the video-call button everyone keeps telling you about.
Connection belongs in the healthy-aging conversation, too.
Healthy Aging Looks Different Across Southeast Idaho And Here’s Where to Turn
One of the things we appreciate about Southeast Idaho is that every community has its own rhythm.
Healthy aging doesn’t have to look exactly the same everywhere—or for everyone. And you don’t have to figure it out alone: Idaho’s Area Agencies on Aging exist specifically to connect older adults and families with local services, often at no cost.
Idaho Falls, Ammon, Rexburg & Madison County
For families in Idaho Falls, Ammon, Rexburg, and the surrounding Madison County communities, staying independent might mean continuing neighborhood walks, returning to favorite community activities after surgery, or having additional support while recovering at home.
Area VI Agency on Aging (Eastern Idaho Community Action Partnership) serves Bonneville, Madison, Teton, Fremont, and surrounding counties with congregate and home-delivered meals, transportation assistance, caregiver support, and senior center programs. Reach them at eastidahoaging.com or 208-522-5391.
Following an illness, injury, surgery, or hospitalization, it may also be worth talking with your physician about whether skilled home health care is appropriate—it can bring nursing or therapy visits directly to you while you regain strength.
Explore Eden Health services throughout Idaho Falls, Ammon, Rexburg, and Southeast Idaho.
Driggs, Victor & Teton Valley
Healthy aging in Driggs, Victor, and the Teton Valley comes with some considerations that aren’t quite the same as living in the middle of a larger city.
As September arrives, it’s a useful time for older adults and their families to think ahead about transportation, medication refills, fall risks, emergency contacts, mobility, and what might happen if winter weather makes getting out of the house more difficult.
Teton Valley falls under the Area VI Agency on Aging service area as well, and can connect residents with transportation and in-home support options suited to a more rural setting.
Planning isn’t pessimistic. It’s one of the ways we protect independence.
Explore Eden Health services in Driggs, Victor, and surrounding Southeast Idaho communities.
Pocatello & Chubbuck
For older adults in Pocatello and Chubbuck, healthy aging isn’t limited to what happens at a doctor’s appointment.
Community activities, music, senior programs, volunteering, walking, hobbies, and simply spending time with other people can all be meaningful parts of everyday life.
Area V Agency on Aging (Southeast Idaho Council of Governments), based in Pocatello, serves Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida, and Power counties. They’re a good first call for meal programs, transportation, caregiver resources, and general information and assistance. Reach them at sicog.org or 208-233-4032 (toll-free: 1-800-526-8129).
Find Eden Health services near Pocatello and Chubbuck.
Blackfoot, Shelley & Rural Southeast Idaho
Healthy aging can look different when you live outside a larger city.
For families in Blackfoot, Shelley, American Falls, Arco, Inkom, and surrounding rural communities, transportation and distance may add another layer to accessing healthcare and support.
The same Area V Agency on Aging (see contact info above) covers Bingham, Power, and the other rural counties of Southeast Idaho, and can help identify local senior centers, home-delivered meals, and transportation options closer to home.
For people who qualify, receiving appropriate services at home such as home health nursing or therapy can help bring parts of that support directly into the place they’re most comfortable, without requiring a long drive for every visit.
See all Southeast Idaho communities served by Eden Health.
A Simple Healthy Aging September Checklist
You don’t need to overhaul your life this month.
Pick one or two things.
- Move: Add a little safe movement to your week.
- Connect: Call, visit, volunteer, or spend time with someone you enjoy.
- Check: Schedule an overdue medical, vision, dental, or hearing appointment.
- Look around: Fix one potential safety issue at home.
- Learn: Try something you’ve always been curious about.
- Ask: Bring up a health change you’ve been ignoring with your primary care physician.
- Plan: Think ahead about medications, transportation, appointments, and winter weather.
- Enjoy: Do something simply because you like doing it.
Click here to download the check list
That last one counts too.
A printable, one-page version of this checklist is available as a separate PDF handy to post on the fridge or bring to an appointment.
For more ideas, the national Healthy Aging® website provides additional resources focused on positive, practical approaches to growing older.
Your Best Chapter Doesn’t Have an Age Limit
Healthy Aging Month isn’t asking you to pretend you’re 25.
And frankly, most of us wouldn’t want to redo our twenties anyway.
It’s an invitation to recognize that getting older and living well aren’t opposing ideas.
You can make adjustments and still be independent.
You can ask for help and still be capable.
You can take precautions without living in fear.
And you can continue learning, connecting, laughing, exploring, and changing at any age.
At Eden Health, we’re proud to support patients and families throughout Southeast Idaho with home health, home care, and hospice services designed to meet people where they are—at home and in the communities they know.
If You Need Help at Home, Here’s Where to Start
- Talk with your primary care physician. Describe the specific changes you’ve noticed—in strength, balance, mobility, memory, or medication management—and ask directly whether home health or therapy could help.
- Ask about eligibility. Home health services are typically physician-ordered, and Medicare may cover them when certain criteria are met. It’s worth asking what applies to your situation.
- Reach out to Eden Health. A conversation doesn’t commit you to anything—it’s a chance to ask questions and understand what’s available near you.
- Loop in your local Area Agency on Aging. For support beyond medical care—like meals, transportation, and caregiver resources—Area V (Pocatello) and Area VI (Idaho Falls) are there to help you navigate it.
Find Eden Health services in your Southeast Idaho community →