STAUNTON STATE PARK SENIORS ADVENTURE 

The Seniors Alliance of Platte Canyon is heading to Staunton State Park for a morning hike and picnic lunch. We will meet at Staunton State Park at 10:30am on Thursday, June 18th, where we will begin our guided adventure with a short (approximately 1 mile) hike to the Davis Ponds, and stop and enjoy our picnic lunches before returning to the parking area. There is a $10 admission to the Park if you didn't purchase the CO State Park Annual entry fee when renewing your vehicle registration. As an option, we will meet at the Pine Junction Park 'n Ride at 9:45am and carpool to the Park. The forecast is for clear sunny skies and warm temperatures-let's take advantage of weather, nature's beauty, fresh air, the expertise of a Park volunteer, and the opportunity to make new friends.  See the attached flyer for complete details.

SAPC ANNUAL ICE CREAM SOCIAL AT MCGRAW MEMORIAL PARK

SAPC is hosting their annual Ice Cream Social at McGraw Memorial Park on Saturday, June 20th, between 1 and 3pm. McGraw Park is hosting an Open House that day from 11am to 3pm. The buildings will be open and Docents can give tours. This is a great opportunity to enjoy ice cream while touring a local historical treasure. We hope you and your family and friends will join us for this fun-filled afternoon.  See attached flyer for complete details.

The truth about ticks in Colorado

Tick season in Colorado is here. Even though ticks are small, they can pack a dangerous punch. Prevention is key to enjoying the outdoors, for you and your pets.

By: Susan Cunningham, for UCHealth  May 4, 2026

Spring and early summer are prime times for ticks in Colorado. Prevention is key when enjoying the outdoors, where Colorado ticks may be abundant. Photo: Getty Images.

They’re tiny, clingy and hanging out on grass and shrubs near you.

Tick season in Colorado is here. And even though ticks are small, they can pack a dangerous punch.

“Ticks can carry multiple different infection-causing agents: bacterial, viral, parasites,” said Dr. Phaedra Fegley, a family medicine physician in Steamboat Springs and member of the medical staff at UCHealth. “Within minutes of biting you, they’ve released their saliva and whatever it’s carrying.”

Thinking about ticks may make your skin crawl, but read on so you can stay safe. Fegley outlines what you need to know when it comes to ticks and your health.

Key facts about ticks in Colorado

There are about 30 different species of ticks in Colorado, the most common of which are the Rocky Mountain wood tick and the American dog tick. Tick activity peaks in spring and early summer, but ticks can be active throughout the year.

Altitude isn’t a safeguard. Ticks can live at elevations up to about 10,000 feet.

Tick-borne illnesses

In Colorado, the most common tick-borne illnesses are Colorado Tick Fever and Tick-borne Relapsing Fever. Despite its name, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is rare in Colorado.

Lyme disease is very common in the northeastern parts of the U.S. and can cause debilitating illnesses. In the past, only a handful of cases of Lyme disease were reported in Colorado, and none of these exposures originated in the state. But Lyme disease is spreading throughout the U.S.

View this map from experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It shows rising cases of Lyme disease as they’ve been spreading across the U.S. from 2000 to 2023.

Health experts note that there are limitations of surveillance data and problems with underreporting of Lyme disease. So, it’s wise to be cautious about all tick-borne illnesses.

“Symptoms may be subtle and feel like the flu. You may have body aches, fever and chills. Your joints feel terrible. But then it’s gone,” Fegley said. “And people’s immune systems can vary. One person may be very sick, while another may feel like they just have an illness for a couple of days.”

Steps for preventing tick bites and tick-borne diseases

Ticks live along forest edges, preferring to stay at the tops of plants or the tips of grasses so they can easily latch onto whomever or whatever passes near them. They can sense body heat, carbon dioxide, body odor and vibrations.

Here are some tips to avoid picking up a tick while you’re enjoying being outdoors:

• Wear tall socks or tuck your pants into your socks, and choose lighter clothing so dark ticks stand out.
• 
  
• Cover your body. Wear a hat and dress in long sleeves and long pants. (You can dress in layers and wear loose clothing so you don’t get too hot on a vigorous hike.)
• Consider wearing clothes that are treated with permethrin or DEET to repel ticks.
• Use bug repellants, including those with DEET or essential oils such as oil of lemon eucalyptus.
• Here is information on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellents, and a helpful search tool to find the repellent that’s right for you.
• If you’re using sunscreen, apply it first, then insect repellent.
• Always check yourself for ticks after being outdoors.

“As soon as you’re home, throw your clothes in the dryer on high heat for 20 minutes to dislodge or kill any ticks,” Fegley said. “Shower and do a tick check, starting with your scalp and working your way down to check all the crevices of the body.”

In addition to preventing ticks from getting on your body or clothes, you can also reduce the number of ticks in your yard if you live in an area that’s hospitable to them.

Fegley advises people to pick up trash in their yards and mow their lawns regularly.

And take steps to keep ticks off of pets, which can carry ticks indoors.

Tick removal

If you find a tick on your body, it’s vital to remove it as quickly as possible. But you also need to do so carefully.

Here are the key tips from Fegley and experts at Colorado State University for removing a tick:

• If possible, use tweezers and pull the tick straight up. “Be careful not to squeeze the body or crush the head, as you can squirt more of its saliva into your body,” Fegley said.
• If you’re out in nature and you don’t have tweezers, try using your fingernails. If possible, cover your fingers with a tissue, a little piece of plastic or a sanitary wipe to avoid infecting yourself.
• Grasp the tick as close to your body as possible, then quickly pull it straight out. You want to be sure to pull out the tick’s full body, including the head. This can be tricky because ticks dig their heads into our bodies to feed. They also clamp their feet into their hosts.

There are many myths about removing ticks. But you need to be careful because some of these methods either don’t work or can be dangerous.

When removing a tick, do not:

• Squeeze, crush or twist the tick.
• 
  
• Use substances like petroleum jelly, nail polish, alcohol or shampoo. These methods can be too slow or can make the area slippery, which can make it harder to pull the full tick’s body out of your body. The key to removing a tick is to get the full tick out of your body as fast as possible.
• Use a flame. It’s true that a tick bite can make you sick, so you want to get it out. But you don’t want to also burn yourself. So, do not hold a match or lighter close to your skin to try to remove a tick.

When to see a doctor about a tick

Since ticks are small, it’s easy to miss them.

“But if someone says, ‘I’ve been out hiking in the woods and three to 10 days later, I came down with this horrible illness,’ it’s worth seeing your medical provider and getting tested,” Fegley said.

Some people worry so much about ticks that they avoid being outdoors. You don’t need to do this. It’s wonderful and healthy to enjoy the outdoors. Just take steps to ward off ticks and always do a tick check afterward, and you’ll be fine.

“Take steps to prevent bites and check yourself after being outside,” Fegley said. “Ticks shouldn’t keep you from enjoying the outdoors.”

For more information about ticks and preventing tick bites, Fegley recommends learning more about Colorado Tick Fever. While bug repellants don’t always work against ticks, you can read the Environmental Working Group’s recommendations about safe repellents.

Do I need to worry about ticks on my pets?

Pets also are at risk for ticks and can get many of the same diseases as humans, along with a few that are unique to animals, said Dr. Andrew Ciccolini, a veterinarian and medical director of primary care at Colorado State University Veterinary Health Systems.

In Colorado, the concerning diseases animals can get from ticks include:

• Anaplasmosis (dogs).
• 
  
• Ehrlichiosis (dogs).
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever (dogs and humans; not very common in Colorado).
• Lyme disease (dogs and humans; less common in Colorado than in the Northeast).

These diseases tend to cause symptoms in pets similar to those seen in humans.

Symptoms of tick-related diseases in your pet include:

• Lethargy
• Fever
• Limping or joint pain
• Loss of appetite
• Swollen lymph nodes

“It’s important to know that infected pets don’t always show symptoms right away,” Ciccolini said.

These “subclinical” infections may resolve on their own without causing problems, but in other cases they can lead to serious health issues later. For that reason, it’s important to identify and treat them early.

“If you find ticks on your pet, speak with your veterinary team about the best time to follow up on any testing,” he said.

Outdoor animals, such as backyard chickens, goats or rabbits, also are vulnerable. Ticks can become a major problem for these species, Ciccolini said, making prevention especially important.

Cats are less commonly affected by ticks than dogs because they groom themselves frequently. However, ticks can still attach and transmit diseases like cytauxzoonosis, which is rare but very serious, Ciccolini said.

When using tick prevention methods on your cat, make sure it is a cat-safe product as many dog products are toxic to cats, he said.

Preventing ticks on your pets

“Ticks can be surprisingly small, especially in the nymph stage, which makes them difficult to detect,” Ciccolini said. “They often go unnoticed until they’ve grown larger after feeding on your pet.”

For this reason, prevention is a better strategy.

But do tick collars and shampoos actually work? Ciccolini said there is no straightforward answer, as it very much depends on the product.

• Modern tick collars — flumethrin/imidacloprid-based — are highly effective for several months and are best for continuous prevention.
• 
  
• Tick shampoos work differently. They kill ticks that are on your pet at the time of bathing, but don’t provide long-term protection.
• The Companion Animal Parasite Council offers a helpful “quick product reference guide” that helps you find recommended products for your animal and the parasites you’re trying to prevent.

“Many tick products don’t repel ticks. Instead, the tick must bite your pet before the product kills it,” he said.

With these products, you may still find a tick on your pet, but the product should kill that tick fast enough that it doesn’t have time to transmit a disease.

Ciccolini said your veterinarian is a great resource in knowing what product might be the most effective and safest for your pet.

And even if you focus on prevention, you should still do a “tick check” on your pet regularly using the feel method, rather than relying on sight.

How to do a tick check on your pet:

• Run your hands slowly over your pet’s entire body, feeling for small bumps or pea-sized lumps.
• 
  
• Pay special attention to:
• Ears (inside and behind)
• Around the eyes and lips
• Neck/collar area
• Armpits and groin
• Between toes
• Base of tail
• On long-haired pets, part the fur down to the skin.

What happens if you find a tick on your pet?

You want to make sure you safely remove a tick from your pet, just as you would do with a human.

“Pulling a tick off incorrectly can cause the body to detach while the head remains embedded in the skin, which can lead to irritation or infection,” Ciccolini said.

He said the easiest way is to buy a tick-removing tool, which is inexpensive and effective.

How to safely remove a tick from your pet:

1. Use fine-tipped tweezers or a tick-removal tool.
2. 
   
3. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible.
4. Pull straight out with steady pressure (don’t twist).
5. Clean the area with alcohol or soap and water.
6. Wash your hands.

When removing a tick, avoid:

• Burning the tick.
• Using petroleum jelly or oils (these can increase disease transmission).

What to remember when it comes to keeping your animals safe from ticks:

• Routine inspection is key.
• 
  
• Maintain clean, dry housing areas.
• Manage yards or pastures by reducing brush and tall grass where ticks thrive.
• Use species-appropriate parasite control products.
• Tick prevention is far easier than treatment.
• Colorado is not tick-free; risk is real, especially in the foothills and rural areas.
• Pets can act as sentinels for human risk — if your dog has ticks, your environment likely has them too.
• Year-round prevention is increasingly recommended as seasons shift.

Frailty threatens the health and well-being of older adults, but it’s not inevitable

Frailty is not a normal or unavoidable part of aging. Patients can take simple steps to prevent or reverse frailty, thereby improving their health and strengthening society.

By: Tyler Smith  April 22, 2026Frailty is a medical syndrome that reduces the body’s reserves and makes it harder to fight illnesses and stress. Frailty can lead to poor health outcomes. Doctors should consider how frail a person is before considering surgery. One option is physical therapy before surgery, which the UCHealth Seniors Clinic offers to anyone who arrives with preoperative paperwork. Photo: Getty Images.

Millions of people in the U.S. who are ages 65 and older are officially considered “frail,” and due to demographic trends, the number of vulnerable people is rising fast.

Being frail means that you’re physically or mentally compromised to the point that you are much more vulnerable to suffering additional health problems.

More than a decade ago, the National Health and Aging Trends Study estimated that 15% of older adults in the U.S., who were at least age 65 and not living in nursing homes, were already frail.

The 2015 estimate equated to roughly 6 million people, but as the nation’s population has aged, so has the number of people in this age group who now are considered frail. Today, the estimate has climbed to 8 million people.

Mere statistics hide the significance of this rise in the number of frail older adults. In medical and human terms, frailty is much more than physical weakness. It is a collection of problems that erode the bodily reserves that enable a person to fight disease, injury, trauma and illness. Frailty takes a toll on individuals, caregivers and the health care system as a whole.

Frailty is not the burden of older people alone. Nor is it the inevitable result of aging. People can take steps to prevent or reverse frailty, and doing so represents a huge step forward, both for the individual and for society.

To learn more about the challenges of frailty, we spoke with Dr. Thomas Johnson, assistant professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. Johnson treats patients in the UCHealth Seniors Clinic – Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion.

How exactly do you define medical frailty?

Johnson began by quoting from a 2019 paper that defines frailty “as a biologic syndrome of decreased reserve and resistance to stressors, resulting from cumulative declines across multiple physiologic systems, and causing vulnerability to adverse outcomes.”

In plainer terms, he said, “people who are frail are more at risk for worse outcomes and have more difficulty returning to their normal previous function after a stressor.”

Those stressors include falls, injuries, hospitalizations, illnesses and chronic diseases.

Is frailty a condition that is limited to older adults?

No, frailty is not a condition only of older people. Frailty can occur at any age in people with many illnesses, ranging from chronic infections to end-stage kidney disease to cancer, Johnson said.

Is frailty inevitable as we age?

No, frailty is not inevitable.

“People may assume that every adult as they become older will become frail,” Johnson said. “That’s not true. It’s something that we can try to prevent and fight against with a healthy lifestyle, exercise and social engagement.”

We’ll provide more information on preventive steps you can take in a moment.

Can a person’s chronological and biological age be two different things?

Yes, a person’s chronological age may not predict their biological age, and vice versa, Johnson said.

“We’ve all met people who are, say, age 72 and we’re surprised,” he said. “Maybe they are youthful and very active, or maybe they aren’t and you would guess they are older. We can’t help our chronological age, but we can influence our biological age with a healthy lifestyle and working with our providers to treat our medical illnesses.”

In working as a doctor with “young learners,” Johnson said he explains that he doesn’t care nearly as much about a patient’s age in years as he does about their function and whether that indicates if they are frail or on the cusp of becoming frail.

How do you decide if a person is frail?

There are five criteria that medical experts use to determine whether or not a person is frail or at risk for becoming frail, Johnson said.

The five criteria that determine if a person is frail include:

• Unintentional weight loss in the last year.
• 
  
• Weakness, as measured by grip strength.
• Low energy and endurance, as measured by how fatigued a person gets after certain activities.
• Slowness, as measured by walking speed.
• Low physical activity, which is estimated by how many calories a person expends..

A person who is frail meets at least three of these criteria, Johnson said. A person who meets one or two is at risk of becoming frail.

“It is super important that we recognize these risks early and intervene,” Johnson said.

What are the potential consequences for people who are frail?

“There have been studies that have looked into this,” Johnson said. “Does frailty matter in the real world? Does it change people? It really does.”

For example, one study looked at the possible connections between frailty and disease processes. It noted that patients who are frail are at greater risk for developing chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, heart disease and anemia. In turn, people with these diseases are at greater risk of becoming frail.

The authors concluded that “frailty and chronic diseases go hand in hand and it is of utmost importance to identify them and intervene during early stages.”

People who are frail frequently require higher levels of care, Johnson said.

“They are more likely to need nursing home care, hospitalizations and longer hospital stays,” he noted.

Is frailty an important consideration for people who want to have surgery or require surgery?

Yes. It is very important to think about frailty in surgery and surgical planning, Johnson said.

The goal is to prepare people as well as possible to withstand and recover from the rigors of surgery.

One way to do that is through “prehabilitation” with a physical therapist before the procedure. Patients may also get nutritional and psychological support before a surgery.

The UCHealth Seniors Clinic offers physical therapy for its patients before surgery, Johnson noted.

“Patients with preoperative paperwork can walk down the hall to a PT (physical therapist) and get started instead of having to wait for an appointment,” Johnson said.

Evidence shows that people who get physical therapy before surgery have better outcomes, but it’s not a guarantee. For example, one major study of colorectal cancer patients facing surgery showed no difference in outcomes between those who had a prehabilitation program versus those who had standard care. However, those prehabilitation patients who attended at least 80% of their visits showed improvements in their complication rates and in their six-minute walking times.

The takeaway from the study is important, Johnson said.

“Patients who are motivated and put in the work will have better outcomes from surgery.”

Are there psychological and social consequences of frailty?

Yes. Frailty frequently causes psychological and social impacts.

“People who are frail are less active and are exhausted when they move,” Johnson said. “This can lead to social isolation. In senior living (centers), people may decide to take all their meals in their room and not leave their room anymore. In the community, frailty can limit a person’s ability to engage in the things they love, like hobbies and having coffee with friends.”

In these ways, frailty creates “a vicious cycle,” Johnson said.

As people become more and more fatigued, they stop exercising, which in turn causes muscles to deteriorate. As they become more frail, their ability to move around declines, and they become more sedentary and more isolated.

Johnson emphasized that social isolation is strongly related but not exclusive to frailty. It is important to identify its causes for anyone who experiences it. These can include transportation problems, financial issues, depression or problems with mobility.

The good news is that antidotes for loneliness, apathy and loss of purpose are at hand for people who exercise and get out to experience nature, art and other social activities, Johnson said.

“By engaging in these behaviors, we can improve our quality of life and quantity of life as well,” he said.

What are some individual and societal benefits of preventing or reversing frailty?

“Preventing frailty reduces the costs of care and hospitalizations, but it also helps people to live the lives they want,” Johnson said. “A lot of my patients want to avoid living in a nursing home, and the way that they can do that is by preventing frailty.”

UCHealth’s 

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