Categories: Lifestyle

7 Ways To Look After The Senior Members Of Your Family

When it comes to looking after the seniors in your family, this is probably one of the most important topics that need to be discussed in your life right now. When you are the primary caregiver of that senior member of your family, you are the main way that they are going to stay happy and healthy. [pullquote]Many times, these seniors can’t take good care of themselves.[/pullquote] This is just because as we get older, it takes longer for us to make decisions, reach down for objects on the floor, or even cook big meals for ourselves and get the right nutrition. That’s why it’s crucial for you to take the time to learn how to take care of that elderly member of your family.

That’s where we’re going to come in to help! The following article is going to give you all of the information you need to know about taking care of those elderly members of your family. Keep reading down below and you’ll have everything you need to know about this topic.

1. Make Some Changes In Their Home

The first thing you need to think about when looking after your senior is taking care of their house. There are plenty of ways that your senior can hurt themselves or get into some kind of trouble in their own home. Even if you don’t think that their home is dangerous, this is often the place where seniors get hurt the most. Here are some ways that you can make your senior’s home safe and sound to live in:

Get rid of all that clutter. Remove extra pieces of furniture that block walking paths, move away those boxes of storage, and make sure there’s nothing dangerous on the ground.
Add some grab bars around the shower, bathtub, and toilet. This is going to ensure that your senior can get around in the bathroom without a problem.
Install a smoke detector that will give off a strobe light whenever it goes off, rather than just the sound.
Make sure to set the temperature of water to a comfortable heat setting. This will ensure that your senior never burns their older skin.
Tuck away all cables and cords that could cause your senior to fall.
Make sure you put in some non-skid mats in those areas of your senior’s house that are a bit more slippery than other areas.

2. Be Sure To Keep Track

If you are someone who wants to keep an eye on your senior at all times, but you don’t have the time to be with them all of the time, then there are options for you. There are plenty of technologies out there, like placing small motion sensors around the house that will alert you whenever your senior is moving around or not. If you don’t get an alert that your senior walked to the bathroom in the morning, then that might be an alert that you should go and check in on them.

3. Hire Someone To Take Care Of Your Senior

Of course, sometimes you just can’t be the one who takes care of your senior on a daily basis. Whether you have to work or you live a long distance away from that elderly member of your family, this is something that a lot of family members have to deal with. When this happens, you shouldn’t have to worry about your senior! You can have a caregiving service come to help out with your loved one whenever they need help. And there are plenty of organizations that can help with this and provide you with highly-qualified caregivers

4. Cater For Their Expenses

When your senior is just living off of their Social Security checks, it can be tough for them to make ends meet. It’s actually the fact that many of our elderly people in the US are living in poverty or near the poverty line. If this is the case for your senior, then you should think about covering some of their daily and monthly expenses. This could range from everything from caregiver expenses to medical visits for their joint pain to their weekly grocery bills. No matter what costs you are going to be covering, this will be able to relieve a lot of the financial stress that your senior may be facing.

5. Be Sure To Visit Them Often

You should have a regular schedule a visiting your senior. Many times, the elderly members of our family can feel extra stress and depression whenever they are not visited often by family members. You can easily solve this by just going to visit and spend time with your senior on a regular basis. Whether this is weekly or daily being up to your schedule and what you can do. You want to make sure that you are not putting too much stress on you by taking care of your senior. Check and see if the rest of your family or their friend group can help out in this regard! You won’t be able to take care of your senior when you can’t take care of yourself.

6. Make Sure They Get Regular Exercise

Even though you may think that your senior can’t get up and move anymore, it’s more important than ever that your senior gets enough exercise. Without proper exercise on a daily basis, they are at risk for developing all kinds of diseases and just not being healthy and well. There are plenty of ways that you can get your senior moving. Try to get them on a walk around the neighborhood on a regular basis. Or they can even try out yoga!

7. Take Care with Medicines

It’s important that your senior takes care with any medication that he or she is taking. It can be tough for them to know how much of each medication to take on a regular basis and this can be pretty dangerous for them to manage on their own. It’s much better for you to help them organize which medications to take on a regular basis and how much of each they should be taking.

There you have it! When taking care of your loved one, there is nothing more important than the above points. Even if the future brings in a robot to help out the elderly, they are your responsibility too. Therefore, make sure to keep them in mind when you are thinking about how you’re going to care for that elderly member of your family.

For more senior-related information and tips here on Bit Rebels, click here!