All things health related: resources for physical and behavioral health care, healthy lifestyles, reducing social isolation, and cognitive health (dementia).
On This Page
Local Health Resources
Community Health Care Clinic
900 Franklin Avenue Normal, IL 61761 Phone: (309) 888-5531 Med refills: (309) 888-4653 Fax: (309) 888-5530
This free clinic provides healthcare to McLean County’s medically underserved residents. Comprehensive medical and dental services, and prescription medications are provided at no cost.
McLean County Health Department
200 W. Front Street Bloomington, IL 61701 Phone: (309) 888-5450 Fax: (309) 452-8479
Services available include behavioral health, dental clinic, health promotion programs, immunizations, among others. A major emphasis is Healthy Eating Active Living, with lifestyle change programming.
Bloomington VA Clinic
207 Hamilton Road Bloomington, IL 61704-7527 Phone: (309) 827-4090
This outpatient clinic provides primary care and specialty health services, including mental health care, laboratory services, programs to help you stop smoking and using tobacco, pharmacy services, and more. Includes a lit of health services offered at this location.
Danville Illiana Health Care System
Specialty care services not available in the Bloomington clinic are offered here for residents of McLean County. Services include mental health care, women’s health services, treatment for PTSD, foot care, vision care, orthopedics, and more. See here (link to Social Work Services document) for a complete list of social work services available through the Danville Illiana Health Care System.
Living a Healthy Life
Matter of Balance
Matter of Balance offers workshops that increase activity levels of older adults while reducing the fear of falling. The website includes a search engine to find a workshop near your location.
Administration for Community Living
The ACL is committed to advocacy and research to protect the rights of older people, support people’s choices on where they want to live. Their website provides a wide range of articles, fact sheets and tips for older adults, people with disabilities and/or caregivers. Among topics covered: falls prevention, Medicare fraud, nutrition, behavioral health, hospice, driving, pension counseling, emergency preparedness and much more.
Planning for Health Events
This website helps you plan for unforeseen health events that may occur as you age. (Not to be confused with end of life care and wills).
National Council on Aging Center for Healthy Aging
This website has physical and mental health information, as well as lifestyle, diet and nutrition, exercise and fitness, and aging mastery. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to these topics.
Wellness Exercises
SeniorShape with Lauren
Lauren offers a variety of different types workouts for older adults, available free on her YouTube channel.
AARP Fitness videos
AARP offers over 75 different videos with a wide range of fitness goals and duration.
Exercise for Seniors
This site has information about improving your health through exercise, recommended frequency, what to do and what to avoid, and more.
Chair Exercises for Seniors
This page has information on the nature and benefits of chair exercises, what to look for, and descriptions for how to do them.
Silver Sneakers
This YouTube channel offers a range of short workout videos, from stretching, Latin Dance, yoga, balance, cardio, back pain and abdominal workouts.
Yoga with Adriene
Adriene has provided videos of yoga routines for years; Yoga for Seniors: Slow and Gentle Yoga is a great beginning yoga routine. Chair Yoga is another option.
Center Space Yoga
Free yoga videos for seniors and beginners; other yoga workouts available for purchase.
Bob and Brad Programs
Bob and Brad are experienced physical therapists who offer “a series of free programs made up of multiple videos designed to help you treat common therapy problems at home”. Printable guide sheets are available as well. Videos for specific areas such as sciatica, shoulder series, knee replacement fitness and hip replacement fitness may be found here.
Tai Chi: Freshfield Fitness
Tai chi enhances strength and focus. Based in the United Kingdom, this YouTube channel offers tai chi videos for fitness, arthritis, balance, and seated tai chi. Their Beginner Tai Chi at Home can be found here.
Tai Chi for Balance
“Studies show that practicing tai chi reduces falls up to 45% for older adults”. This 14 minutes video will help improve balance.
Reducing Social Isolation
Activity and Recreation Center (ARC)
600 E. Willow Street Normal, IL 61761 Phone: (309) 888-9099 Contact Us
Supported by Normal Township, ARC membership is a doorway to a multitude of classes and social gatherings. Annual membership fee is quite low and, in some cases, reduced or covered. A reduction in membership fees is available to individuals or couples that meet certain income requirements. SilverSneakers®, Silver&Fit®, & Renew Active Members – the ARC membership fee is waived following verification.
Miller Park Adult Center
Located in the Miller Park Pavilion, the Center provides pool tables, game tables, a lending library, television, areas for socializing and a computer area. They also have monthly events.
Social Isolation Resources
This website offers a wide range of other websites, webpages, articles, newsletters, handouts, and videos as well as an assessment tool and links for social engagement for those who are struggling with social isolation themselves or are concerned about a loved one.
Far From Alone
This campaign brings together partners that are committed to increasing social connectedness. They have a list of resources here: https://farfromalone.com/resources/
Connect2Affect
This website, part of the AARP Foundation, provides an assessment for social isolation as well as help for those suffering from it. These resources include tips to stay connected, educational articles, and finding services in your area.
Commit to Connect
This website is supported by the Administration for Community Living, and has various resources for combating social isolation: educational articles, tips, activity guides, and helplines.
Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Illinois Cognitive Resources Network
Provides resources for caregivers and their families such as how to care for someone with Alzheimer’s, safety issues, communication, and on-line support tools, understanding dementia behavior.
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Fact Sheets
Easy to access fact sheets on everything from dementia warning signs to various tips for to manage common issues for caregivers.
BrainGuide
Memory questionnaire and guide toward information and resources that inform next best steps.
Illinois Extension
Audio, video and web resources for brain health across the lifespan.
Myvision.org
Recent studies and research strongly link eye health to various conditions, including Alzheimer’s. This guide discusses the link between eyes and Alzheimer’s, how the disease affects your eyes, the use of eye exams for early detection, and more!
Behavioral Health
McLean County Health Department Services
200 W Front Street Bloomington, IL 61701 Phone: (309) 888-5450
This web page has links to local and national entities that support mental health, including screening tools, hospital care, and information on alcoholism and substance abuse.
PATH Behavioral Health/Crisis Services/ Substance Use
This website lists sources for a wide variety of services related to behavioral health, crisis, and substance use
Bereavement Support Groups
This website provides a search engine for locating bereavement support groups according to zip code.
Support Groups (PATH)
PATH’s web page provides links to support groups for a wide variety of challenges, from addiction to veterans, civil rights to health issues.
Hearing Health
Sertoma Speech and Hearing Center
Crest Hill Office: (630) 663-5060 Palos Hill Office: (708) 599-9500
Located in Crest Hill and Palos Hills Illinois and they are providing free hearing screenings.
The American for Better Hearing Foundation
Phone: (630) 321-3555
This foundation is located in Burr Ridge Illinois and provides free services such as cerumen removal, hearing loss prevention, regular audiology visits, hearing aid cleaning and repairs.
Always H.E.A.R Hearing Center
Bloomington Office: (309) 664-6200 Peoria Office: (309) 266-6869
This establishment can be found in Bloomington and Peoria Illinois, and they provide free hearing evaluations.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Services: As long as you have a copy of your health insurance, drivers license, the veteran DD214, and are recommended for hearing aids; the actual hearing aids, fittings and repairs are at no charge to you as long as you remain eligible under the VA.
ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
This page has resources to learn about hearing loss and its effects and identify support groups.
Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA)
This page includes auditory training programs, hearing loss basics and information on the technology designed for those with hearing loss.
The Listening Room
This page has free activities and resources to support the development of speech, language, and listening skills in people of all ages with hearing loss.
Med-EL Adult Rehabilitation Kits
Guided introduction, educational tool, and assistive activities to benefit new cochlear implant users. Each kit focuses on a different topic and provides useful activities that help ease the adjustment to life with cochlear implants.
Angel Sound
The new version of Sound and WAY Beyond, by Cochlear Americas, that combines an interactive and appealing set-up with speech discrimination activities. This program provides a range of difficulty levels and gives feedback to users. Angel Sound aims to reinforce speech discrimination abilities, enhance listening and communication, simulate realistic listening situations, and monitor progress.
Hearing Hunt
Smart-device application available through the Apple App Store. The creators of this game report that it was made to be streamed through hearing aids that are compatible with smartphone Bluetooth. This interactive application practice speech discrimination at three different difficulty levels.
Hear Coach
Hear Coach is a suite of listening games developed by Starkey that “challenge both your cognitive and auditory sharpness”, accessed through an app. This page has numerous other descriptions of hearing apps.
Hearoes
This is an interactive auditory training and application for hearing impaired recipients
10 Great Tips for First Time Hearing Aid Users
Blog post with tips for those learning to use hearing aids.
Vision Health
Myvision.org
Myvision.org provides fact-based information on eye care and eye health, eye conditions and treatment options, vision correction and eye surgery (like LASIK, Cataracts, and PRK), glasses, contacts, and more. They also provide the following guides:
Alzheimer’s and the Eyes discusses the link between eyes and Alzheimer’s, how the disease affects your eyes, the use of eye exams for early detection, and more!
Health Information on the Internet
National Institute on Aging
This site provides helpful information and a quick checklist to make sure that the health information you are reading online can be trusted. It also has the link to the National Institute of Health Website, “a good place to start for reliable health information.” Available in Spanish.
National Council on Aging
This article provides information on how to find trustworthy mental health information online and provides examples of trustworthy websites.
National Library of Medicine
This site provides a wealth of information and resources, including an interactive tutorial on evaluation internet health information and a health misinformation checklist. Some of these resources are available in Spanish.