Just one of the many exciting events ActiveForever has sponsored!

WHEN: December 4th, 2009 11:30am - 1:00pm WHERE: ActiveForever Interactive Showroom Olive Business Park 9299 W. Olive Ave., Ste 604 Peoria, AZ 85345 For Map and Directions Click Here (Scroll to Peoria Location)Â _________________________________________________________ AGENDA: INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP 11:00-11:30am Registration/Explore/ Posture Tek Showcase 11:30am-1:00pm Lunch 11:30-11:40am Erika Feinberg Introduction 11:40-12:40pm Spinal Health Seminar with Dr. McKeon 12:40pm-1:00pm Q&A   RSVP to Jacki 480-505-6122 or Jshoemake@Activeforever.com by November 27th, 2009   This invitation qualifies for 1 hour of CEU $5.00 for CEU credits

ActiveForever to Sponsor Leg Health Days Online and in Retail Stores

Will Offer Discounts, Personalized Fittings, On-Site Specialists, and More!

ActiveForever.com and BSN Medical (Jobst) are sponsoring Leg Health Days July 18-21, 2011, at retail stores and online; open to the public, this FREE event will highlight compression stockings through discounts, personalized fittings, on-site specialists, giveaways, and more. Compression hosiery are key to healthy legs and vital to preventing blood clots, but a study published in the American Journal of Nursing revealed 29% of patients were incorrectly using their compression stockings and 26% were using incorrectly sized compression stockings. During the free Leg Health Days event, ActiveForever's retail locations (in Scottsdale and Peoria, Arizona) will not only provide personalized fittings but also offer discounts on compression garments, gifts with purchases, coupons, giveaways, and more.

One of Arizona's top "Companies to Watch" opens a new interactive retail and education center in its Scottsdale national headquarters

While most companies are stuck on the economic roller coaster ride, ActiveForever Therapy Equipment, Medical Equipment, Supplies and Healthcare Innovations continues to grow and expand through even the worst of times. With its national headquarters poised in the middle of Scottsdale's surgery center, adjacent to Scottsdale Healthcare Hospital, ActiveForever has been experiencing the community's appreciation, and needs to expand, again.

The CEO, Erika Feinberg explains, "When we first purchased the company, re-designed the business and relocated the headquarters to Scottsdale in 2002, I didn't even have retail in the business plan. People were finding our company online and through our print catalogs in medical offices and then stopping into our headquarters to purchase the products. Now, thanks to the patient referrals from in-home care companies, surgery centers, medical and fitness centers here in Arizona, we have over 10,000 square feet of retail in Arizona." Since retail is not Feinberg's favorite part of ActiveForever's business, she felt the need to make it into something more, so the company is in the process of implementing a new concept of interactive retail that can serve the local community as well as its online customers nationally.

The interactive retail store concept allows someone to come in and experience a grouping of products that cater to specific topics, such as hip, knee or ankle surgery, Parkinson's or neurological issues, exercise therapy, bathroom safety, low vision or hearing loss.

So, you might see a fitness trainer or sports therapist walk into the ActiveForever.com Discovery Center and proceed to the exercise therapy center and enjoy trying and learning about the latest equipment such as the Power Plate, Yogacize Resistance Bench, PilatesStick or Deep Muscle Stimulator. An online customer can experience the exercise therapy center via the website's demonstration videos, or through the network cameras in the retail showroom. Since the company does not engage in any insurance reimbursement, the entire product selection is carefully tested and chosen as the "best choices" of products in each market category, and you'll find the pricing of all the products to be very attractive due to its website's high volume of sales.

ActiveForever also chose to include a meeting room in both its Arizona Discovery Center locations. The meeting rooms are open to the public to reserve for free. Since the company relies so heavily on customer feedback from the healthcare and medical communities, the meeting rooms offer a tremendous benefit to the community and offers a very appreciated social interaction that feeds ActiveForever's mission and continued growth.

About ActiveForever
ActiveForever is the leading source of very well priced life-enhancing products that address almost all physical disabilities, injuries or pain. Products include daily living aids, bath, safety and hygiene products, mobility aids, durable medical equipment, medical nutrition, low vision and hearing loss devices, physical therapy products, land and aquatic exercise therapy products. ActiveForever provides a multitude of product solutions for arthritis, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, stroke rehabilitation, sports injuries, pain relief, foot/ankle, hand, hip/knee and other physically limiting conditions. The company also offers unique and life-enhancing gift ideas. Visit top ranked www.ActiveForever.com 800-377-8033

Discovery Centers: Contain interactive retail and meeting/education centers. Reserve and use it for free! Scottsdale 480-767-6800 and Peoria AZ 623-215-8470

Print Catalogs: Free for your facility to share with your patients and caregivers anywhere in the country.

Originally published October 2008

Losing weight can help you sleep better? It’s true. While there are numerous health risks associated with being overweight, few people know obesity is a primary risk factor for the sleep disorder obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disease in which breathing stops (and starts again) repeatedly as a result of the throat muscles relaxing.

Signs of sleep apnea include waking up with a dry mouth (or sore throat), excessive daytime sleepiness, loud snoring (prominent sign of obstructive sleep apnea), waking abruptly and feeling short of breath upon the abrupt waking, morning headaches, and insomnia.

While there are numerous sleep disorder quizzes you can take to see if you have sleep apnea symptoms, if you experience any of the above signs you should consider consulting a medical professional.

What does being overweight have to do with breathing?

People who are overweight are more likely to have fat deposits around the upper airway which can obstruct breathing. In general, people with a neck circumference greater than 17 inches have an increased risk of sleep apnea due to a thick neck narrowing the airways; a wider neck can be (though not a definite) due to obesity.

Obese people are at an increased risk for developing hypertension, or high blood pressure, which is another risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.

CPAP and Weight Loss

One of the most popular sleep apnea treatments is the use of a continuous positive airflow pressure (CPAP) machine (sometimes called “sleep apnea machines”), which keeps the soft tissues back against the airway walls to provide continuous air, and help prevent the repeated stopping of breathing which defines sleep apnea.

A CPAP machine by itself doesn’t cause weight loss, but it does provide for a more restful sleep and restful sleep improves the body’s overall health and metabolism. Increased metabolism can mean burning calories more quickly and efficiently.

If you’re like me and sleep apnea treatments such as CPAPs are more frustrating than helpful consider weight loss as a way to not only get off of the sleep apnea machine, but you’ll be able to fit back into your old (smaller) clothes. Experts agree the keys to successful weight loss are a healthy diet and exercise. In addition to selling high quality CPAP machines, CPAP machine accessories, and a CPAP pillow, ActiveForever.com also sells affordable exercise equipment and weight loss products.

You’ve probably heard the stress reduction theory that while you can’t control others actions, you can control your reactions to those actions. Sometimes a day of repeating that to yourself and attempting to rethink all your initial reactions can be more stressful than the stressful actions in the first place. You’ve already heard positive thinking, yoga, or meditation is the key to stress relief and relaxation. But I am going to share the secret of long term stress relief , but first let me fill you in on something interesting I just learned about our brains and stress and anxiety:

In periods of prolonged periods of stress (which could also be called “life” for most of us), at a subconscious level, the brain actually reprograms nerves to fire more quickly and with a greater urgency regarding stress; a process known as “ergotropic tuning.” So your body trains itself to get more and more stressed out to an increasing number of stressors over time.

At first that may sound a little scifi, like your body is revolting against you. But your body is all about efficiency so it makes sense that once a stressor is identified the body would want to react urgently from an instinctual standpoint. You’ve probably heard of the “fight or flight” stress response, also the body’s sympathetic nervous system. Because of the chronic stress just from daily job stress, we often hear about the sympathetic system and the health issues which arise from consistent stress; in cave man days “stress” meant a lion chasing you as its dinner and despite that stress today means running late for work our bodies reacts to both stresses (despite the thousands of years in between) the same. To return the body back to a balanced state and allow recuperation from the stress, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks into gear.

“Losing” your patience may actually be your body’s ergotropic tuning. Through ergotropic tuning, your breathing changes and oxygen to the brain is negatively affected. Deep breathing exercises help you control your heart rate, reinforce deep, purposeful breathing, and provide an overall calming effect.

Clinicians have found breathing can regulate the activity of the parasympathetic system, and there are biofeedback devices on the market which guide you to relieve stress through breathing; the StressEraser Portable Biofeedback Device (one of the best-selling on the market) provides a screen to visually help you synchronize your breathing to the calm, relaxed breathing pattern on the screen. Only 15 minutes of use will have you reliving the joys of stress free life!

Research shows the key to learning how to neutralize and counter the effects of stress is by actively adding a positive feeling such as appreciation, care and compassion to the process. It takes more than breathing exercises to shift attitudes and emotions, which is necessary to sustain stress relief and more consistent relaxation. The scientific based, award winning, emWave Personal Stress Reliever biofeedback device does this by adding a the Coherence Coach CD to help you develop positive emotions/attitudes through narration, animation, and music (on the CD) while you are also using the emWave biofeedbackdevice.

If being in front of a computer is the only chance you ever get to sit down, then you’ll love the EmWave Desktop Stress Relief System!

In our harried Western society, sometimes it seems stress is a kind of badge because it means our workload and productivity are incredibly high (other valued attributes) but there really isn’t an award for burning out your body and mind with chronic stress. Allow yourself permission to be healthy with stress relief. Biofeedback devices for stress management can help you relieve stress and relax with only a few minutes of use a day. Act now, because for a limited time only ActiveForever.com has free shipping, discounted prices, and/or rebates for the best biofeedback devices on the market.

In a recently released report commissioned by the American Heart Association, the costs of heart disease in the United States were predicted to triple between now and 2030, to more than $800 billion a year (Reuters).

The United States already has the highest per capita health costs “in the developed world” and current attempts to find positive ways to lower expenses haven’t yielded any solutions thus far.

According to a recent Reuters story about the study, “Dr. Paul Heidenreich of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California and colleagues looked at current costs of heart disease, the U.S. population and trends in behavior and illness for the first such projection of heart disease costs.”

"Between 2010 and 2030, real total direct medical costs of cardiovascular disease are projected to triple, from $272.5 billion to $818.1 billion," reads the report, published in the journal Circulation.

The study found treating high blood pressure, or hypertension, will be the most expensive part of the cost increase. High blood pressure is a very common health problem among Americans, and increases the risk of more serious health problems including heart attack and stroke.

Hypertension is easily detectable, treatable, but most of all – preventable. Some of the risk factors of high blood pressure include being overweight, not being physically active, consuming too much salt (sodium) in your diet, using tobacco, drinking too much alcohol, too little potassium and vitamin D in your diet, and stress. Obviously, to help prevent high blood pressure you simply need to address each of the risks in a proactive way: maintain a healthy weight through physical activity and a healthy diet that limits alcohol and excludes tobacco.

Not interested in any changing your lifestyle habits? If that continues to be the attitude of the majority of Americans the study estimated “that 40 percent of U.S. adults, or 116 million people, will have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease” by 2030. The Reuters story goes on to point out: “Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States and most other developed countries.”

The current economy has many people wanting to know how to increase their health both short term and long term, but from this study’s results a change in American’s attitudes towards heart health would be necessary to keep from costing the United States billions more in health costs in the future.  You can start with yourself though, and instead of just saying you want to lose weight, get in shape, or eat better as your New Year resolution you can actually do it this year. Your heart will thank you, and if enough of us make healthy changes we could be tax payers less burdened with rising health costs over the next two decades.

Parkinson’s disease is a disorder which affects nerve cells (or neurons) in the part of the brain that controls muscle movement. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease can include body trembling, slow movement, poor balance, poor coordination, and/or body stiffness. While there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, exercise can sometimes help people suffering from Parkinson’s disease symptoms.

Exercise can benefit people with Parkinson’s  in a variety of ways: stronger muscles can improve the body’s flexibility and mobility, help relieve depression (common among Parkinson’s patients), can slow the disease’s progress, and may even lessen Parkinson’s symptoms.

Here are some guidelines to remember when exercising with Parkinson’s disease:

1.       Consult an expert when considering the frequency and types of exercises you are going to do. Most fitness trainers don’t have the expertise necessary to understand your medical condition so your best bet is to work with an experienced physical therapist.

2.       Be sure to include a variety of gentle, stretching exercises.

3.       Make sure to move at your own pace; the intensity of your Parkinson’s symptoms will change day-to-day so recognize what you’re able to do each day.

4.       Start by exercising for a few minutes per day and gradually move up to 15 or 20 minutes of daily exercise.

5.       Work on walking skills; practicing walking skills helps improve your gait and increases your heart rate.

6.       Incorporate resistance training to build muscle and increase your coordination.

7.       Balance training is an essential part of your exercise routine. Depending on the severity of your symptoms you may be able to balance while standing on one leg at a time or simplify balance training to standing on both feet but practice shifting your weight from one foot to the other.

8.       Make the mind-body connection; activities like yoga and tai chi help you focus and be present in the moment while also improving your strength and coordination.

In addition to exercising, eating a healthy diet is another lifestyle habit that can often benefit people with Parkinson’s disease. Reducing stress and allowing your body the rest it needs  can offer additional benefits. You may want to consider physical therapy, speech therapy and/or occupational therapy to find additional lifestyle changes and accommodations to help live the best quality of life you can with Parkinson’s disease. Whether you are looking for exercise equipment to help use exercise to live a fuller life with Parkinson’s disease, or you’re interested in the variety of special, Parkinsons products such as  weighted utensils or home handrails there are multitudes of products which help those with Parkinson’s life their best quality of life regardless of the severity of Parkinson’s symptoms.

Behind Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neuorodegenerative disease in America. A consistent exercise program can benefit people with Parkinson’s  in a variety of ways including stronger muscles to improve the body’s flexibility and mobility, helps relieve depression (common among Parkinson’s patients), slow the disease’s progress, and may even lessen Parkinson’s symptoms. If you know someone with Parkinson’s disease be sure and share this information and encourage all you know to incorporate an exercise program into their life for a variety of health benefits. Additional information on Parkinsons symptoms and treatments can be found here.

With the New Year come the resolutions to eat better, work out more, lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. But what about those of us who are constantly on the go and don't always have the opportunity to make it to a gym? Take a look at these helpful exercise products to keep you fit and losing weight, while you travel.

The Slendertone Flex Pro Unisex Abs is an excellent device that tones the muscles and allows you to get an effective workout while you do your daily routine. The product is an adjustable belt that uses EMS (electronic muscle stimulation) that creates deep contractions in your muscles. The gel pads in the band are able to target those more difficult to reach muscles along with the muscles targeted in conventional workouts. There are a total of 7 programs to choose from with over 99 intensity levels that can be adjusted to the user's workout goals and abilities. The Slendertone Flex Pro is battery operated, so you can take it anywhere with you. With this product both men and women will see excellent results in muscle strengthening and toning.

Another ultra compact workout tool is the Thera Band Resistance Exercise Bands. The bands come in a variety of resistance levels and are color coded so the user is able to select the resistance that will suit their needs and get the best strength exercise possible while setting goals for themselves as they move up the color spectrum of bands. The Thera Bands are ideal for both upper and lower body work outs and allows for an unlimited range of workouts that can be done anywhere. This product is perfect for increasing strength, improving flexibility and range of motion. The product is easy to use and can fit just about anywhere.

Another product that will give you great results and travel friendly are the AquaBells Dumbbells and Ankle Weights. The dumbbells and ankle weights can be sold together in a travel set or sold individually. The weights are made of a soft vinyl and are water-filled weights that can be adjusted by simply adding or decreasing the amount of water in the weight. The weights can be emptied completely in just a few seconds and easily stowed in a suitcase, briefcase or purse. The ankle weights can be filled up to 4 pounds each and each dumbbell can provide up to 16 pounds of weight. These travel weights allow for a gym workout to be done at home, at the office or even hotel room. This product is ideal for both men and women, and can be used to increase overall strength, build muscle and burn fat.

Keeping your New Year's resolutions can be a challenge when you are constantly on the go. But with these innovative products, it doesn't have to be, allowing you to get fit and stay fit at your own convenience. Please visit ActiveForever.com for more information on these products and how to purchase your travel exercise equipment today.

Have you ever suffered from back pain, whether it's just occasional or chronic, but do not have the money to drop on a massage or a chiropractor visit? Stretching your back is the easiest way to relieve tense muscles in the entire back area but unless you've been directed on how to do it exactly, stretching on your can be more harmful than helpful. There are products out on the market that cater to these needs specifically; these stretchers are endorsed by personal trainers, physicians and even massage therapists so stop worrying about expensive medical bills with the investment of a great back stretcher.

The Lumbar Extender is an easy and convenient back stretcher that helps relieve chronic back pain, correct postural imbalances as well as help restore the natural curvature of the spin just by simply laying your back onto it. With three levels of stretching, the Lumbar Extender is great for users of all fitness levels. Going on vacation? Stay limber with this back stretcher and take it with you; it's small and compact enough to fit into any bag or briefcase and can be used virtually anywhere where it's convenient for you!

The Lynx Portable Back Stretcher is designed to help your body stretch, relax, and decompress. Great for use after stressful days at work, the Lynx provides moderate, self-administered traction to help realign the spine, increase flexibility, promote relaxation, and improve posture. Completely portable, the Lynx Back Stretcher folds for travel and can be used practically anywhere.

If it's a complete stretch of your back and core muscles you are looking for, the Core Stretch is the ideal device to use. With an innovative design that works your muscles, ligaments, and tendons in your back, the Core Stretch is great for loosening up your shoulders, hips, lats, calf muscles, and hamstrings. The Core Stretch is also lightweight and portable, with 10 sizing options and a three-plane swivel for up-and-down-, side-to-side, and twisting motions.

Whether you sit at a desk or work on a construction site, keeping your back healthy and stretched is key for comfort and overall health. Check out these great solutions and stretch your back pain away!

Studies have shown that all exercise or weight loss programs are more effective with the addition of some sort of strength training or weight lifting regimen. If you travel or don't get to the gym as often as you want dumbbells are the excellent choice to allow anyone the ability to incorporate a strength training program to their cardio efforts The main convenience of a dumbbell centric workout is it can be done virtually anywhere, bedroom, walk-in closet, garage, basement or gym. Besides the standard plate system dumbbell's there are water filled portable versions called AquaBells Dumbbells that are great for the traveller that would like the convenience and privacy of working out in their own hotel room. There are also aquatic dumbbells available for those recovering from injuries that are involved in aquatic therapy or aquatic aerobic activities.

Dumbbells have an advantage over barbell's or weight lifting machines in that they can help cure muscular strength imbalances that can be masked when using machines or barbells. When using machines or barbells your dominant or stronger muscles can take over take over to allow you to complete the repetition. This is bad for 2 reasons one it causes you to have bad form which can lead to a pull or injury the other is disproportionate muscle formation (one arm muscle being bigger than another). Another advantage of a dumbbell workout is its inherent ability to work your core muscles. When you are lifting weights independently via dumbbells your core automatically tightens up to stabilize the body thus you are getting a sort of 2 for one type of workout using dumbbells verses traditional barbell or machines.

Versatility of workouts using dumbbells is another plus; you can work out virtually every muscle group with dumbbells that can be done with barbells or machines. You can even make your cardio workouts more intense and cut your workout time in half by using a treadmill and dumbbells at the same time. Like any workout program variation is the key to success and there is no better way to achieve this than by using dumbbells. No additional machines to buy or specific shaped barbells or racks to purchase. All you need is a set of dumbbells and optionally an adjustable incline bench and you are ready to go.