22 Senior Health Risk Calculators for Healthy Aging

healthy aging

Whether for yourself or for a loved one, these calculators are a starting point for becoming an advocate for healthy aging. Use them to assess an existing concern or even to develop an effective vocabulary for speaking with your doctor.

These calculators online do not replace a consultation with a qualified medical professional.  Please see your doctor for any health problems and go to the emergency room for urgent or life-threatening conditions.

Mental Health Calculators

The changes that often come in later life—retirement, the death of loved ones, increased isolation, medical problems—can lead to depression. The effects of depression go far beyond mood. Depression can impact your energy, sleep, appetite, and physical health. Fortunately, depression is not an inevitable part of aging; there are many steps you can take to overcome the symptoms, no matter the challenges you face.

fall scents for your home

Dementia & Alzheimer’s Survey
While these diagnoses should be carried out by your doctor, this test does help start to quantify the extent of cognitive ability loss, and whether you should be concerned.

Depression Risk Calculator
This calculator helps predict whether you are depressed and/or to what extent you are depressed by examining your innermost thoughts.  Given its format, you have maximum privacy.

Opioid Abuse Risk Formula
This risk formula enables seniors and their caregivers to assess the potential for abuse and addictive behaviors to form if opioids are prescribed for pain.

Elder Abuse Risk Assessment

Each year, hundreds of thousands of adults over the age of 60 are abused, neglected, or financially exploited. In the United States alone, more than 500,000 older adults are believed to be abused or neglected each year (http://www.cdc.gov/features/elderabuse/). If you suspect abuse or neglect, the following assessment tools are a good starting point for making a major change for the better.

Nursing Home Abuse Risk Checklist
If you have concerns about the potential for abuse prior to entering a nursing home then print and complete this risk assessment checklist.

Elder Abuse and Neglect Assessment
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/493951
If you suspect abuse and neglect then this assessment tool provides a starting point for documenting and supporting a formal investigation by the proper authorities.

Elder Mistreatment Screening Instruments
A series of screening instruments to assess whether a loved one may be experiencing mistreatment or abuse while under the watch of a caregiver.

Respiratory Health Calculators

Whether it develops gradually (as often seen with allergies and asthma) or suddenly (as with a pulmonary embolism), respiratory illness is highly disruptive.  If left untreated, it may be life-threatening.  Risk awareness and appropriate preparation are essential to keeping any respiratory illness under control.

Asthma

Asthma Calculator
http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/asthma.asp
Developed using NIH and National Asthma Education and Prevention Program guidelines, this calculator helps people of all ages – children through seniors – identify whether they might have asthma.

Asthma and Allergies Symptom Test – American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
http://acaai.org/resources/tools/symptoms-test
Allergies and asthma can interact to generate effects that may be disrupting your daily life and even your sleep, sometimes developing gradually over time so that you don’t even realize how detrimental their effects may be.  Use this calculator as a starting point in identifying whether you have the symptoms, especially if you suspect that you might not be sleeping well.

Pneumonia

Pneumonia Severity Risk Calculator
The benchmark test for calculating pneumonia severity and risk, you will likely need to consult with your doctor to make sense of the parameters in this calculator.  However, that is a great way for you to take control of the conversation and advocate for your (or a loved one’s) medical care!

Pneumonia Severity Index
http://www.mdcalc.com/psi-port-score-pneumonia-severity-index-adult-cap/
This more user-friendly version of the pneumonia risk calculator factors in other illnesses to estimate mortality (therefore, severity) of community-acquired pneumonia – “normal” pneumonia, as opposed to pneumonia contracted during hospitalization.

Pneumonia Risk in Post-Operative, Non-Cardiac Surgery
http://reference.medscape.com/calculator/pneumonia-risk-post-operative
After surgery, patients are often at their most vulnerable, putting them at risk for diseases such as pneumonia; this calculator estimates what that risk is, allowing you to advocate for appropriate post-operative support (or, at the very least, know what to expect).

Lung Cancer

Cancer of the Lung Evaluation and Assessment of Risk (CLEAR)
http://www.mdanderson.org/education-and-research/departments-programs-and-labs/departments-and-divisions/epidemiology/clear.html
This short questionnaire collects facts about your exposure to risk factors, and using epidemiological data, predicts your likelihood of developing lung cancer.

Vision & Hearing Calculators

As we age, dimming eyesight and failing hearing can reduce physical, functional, emotional, and social well-being. Visual and hearing impairments decrease independence in performing the activities of daily living, getting from place to place, or communicating with others. Often times, isolation, depression, and poorer social relationships may accompany sight and hearing loss (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ahcd/agingtrends/02vision.pdf). Take the assessments below to help determine your risk for vision and hearing loss.

Hearing Test Simulator
http://www.starkey.com/online-hearing-test
Though hosted by a hearing technology company, this tool is a good starting point for evaluating whether you need help for hearing loss.
macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, presbyopia, retinal disorders

Macular Degeneration Calculator
http://caseyamdcalc.ohsu.edu/
This tool uses demographic and medical information to calculate your risk for macular degeneration.  You may need some help from your doctor in completing it, however it’s a good tool if you’d like to know what you should be looking for when evaluating your risk for this disease.

Bone Health Calculators

A fall later in life can be detrimental. However, with strong bones, you decrease your chance for a bone fracture which, in some cases, can lead to surgery or disability.

Bone Fracture Risk Calculator
https://www.garvan.org.au/bone-fracture-risk
Osteoporosis affects both men and women. This calculator helps you better understand your personalized risk of fracture and its potential impact on your quality of life.

Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX)
http://www.shef.ac.uk/FRAX/tool.aspx?country=9
The FRAX® algorithms give the 10-year probability of fracture. The output is a 10-year probability of hip fracture and the 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture (clinical spine, forearm, hip or shoulder fracture).

Rheumatoid Arthritis
This calculator helps examine what you’re feeling as well as your basic lifestyle factors and then predicts whether you are at risk for rheumatoid arthritis.

Healthy Lifestyle Calculators

As we age, our minds and bodies begin working differently. Take the assessments below to help determine your risk for sleep apnea, incontinence and more.

Screening Tool for Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea can rob of you sleep and thus exacerbate any other medical conditions that you might have.  This test uses the University of Pennsylvania’s MAP (multivariable apnea risk index) to ‘screen’ for sleep apnea.

Epworth Sleepiness Scale
http://www.britishsnoring.co.uk/sleep_apnoea/epworth_sleepiness_scale.php
This calculator objectively evaluates your level of daily sleepiness; otherwise, you might suffer the symptoms of sleep disorders without realizing that they are, in fact, linked to poor sleep quality.

Incontinence/Bladder
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/incontinencebladder-chart
A deviation from our usual calculators, this heart helps simplify the process of documenting urinary issues so that you can easily present information to your doctor.

Falling Risk Assessment
Conduct the falling risk assessments on this page to determine what steps – if any – are required for preventing or minimizing the risk of injury or death from a fall.

Senior Driving Safety Self Test
While not designed to replace a professionally administered test, this self-test can give seniors a chance to self evaluate and determine their capacity to drive safely and retain independence.

Please note that we also have separate calculator collections for heart disease, cancer & diabetes calculators.

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22 Senior Health Risk Calculators for Healthy Aging
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