Tips for Protecting Your Senior from Heat Stress and Heat-Related Illness
Homecare in Frederick County VA: Tips for Protecting Your Senior From Heat Related Illness
One of your most important priorities as a family caregiver is to help your parent stay as healthy and safe as possible. There are many ways that you can do this that are consistent at all times, but it is vital that you are ready to make changes to these efforts when necessary to ensure that you address the challenges that arise. When the temperatures outside soar, this includes guarding them against heat stress and heat-related illnesses that can result from this stress.
Use these tips to help protect your parent during the heat and reduce their risk of heat stress and heat-related illness:
• Ensure they are drinking the right amount. Staying hydrated is critical, but you want to make sure that your parent is actually drinking the right amount to ensure that they stay properly hydrated but also that their body stays balanced. Talk to their doctor about their hydration needs and how to handle them, especially if they are living with a health complication such as congestive heart failure that requires fluid control.
• Keep their minerals and salt levels appropriate. Sweating is one of the body’s ways it will cool off. When your parent sweats, however, they are not just losing water. Their body will also lose minerals and salt that are extremely important to their functioning and health. Help them to stay healthier, resist heat stress, and ward of heat-related illness by replacing the salt and minerals. Talk to their doctor about adding sports beverages, salt tablets, or other options to their routine.
• Slow down the pace. Exertion during high temperatures dramatically increases the risk that your senior will suffer from heat stress and heat-related illness. Encourage them to slow down, pace themselves, and take it easy during the hottest parts of the day. This can include helping them to manage their needs more efficiently even when they are going at a slower pace. This can mean being in their home more often, asking for help from friends and family, or hiring a professional care provider.
• Stay in touch. The effects of heat stress can occur extremely quick, especially among elderly adults. Make sure that you can monitor their condition and well-being by staying in touch with them throughout the day. Schedule several phone calls during the day and consider asking friends, neighbors, family members, or a care provider to stop by and check on your parent or spend some time with them during the day.
How can home care help?
Starting home care for your elderly loved-one can be one of the best decisions that you can make for your senior throughout the course of your caregiver journey with your aging parent. An in-home senior care services provider can be in the home with your aging loved-one on a customized schedule that is right for them. They will work with you and your parent to design a highly personalized set of services tailored to their individual needs, challenges, and limitations. In addition to helping them to manage these issues, they can also help your senior to pursue a lifestyle that is as active, engaged, and independent as possible as they age in place. This can include assisting your parent with activities of daily living and personal care, offering companionship and support, and even providing safe and reliable transportation that will help your parent stay safe, healthy, and comfortable, and also seek out a life that is as fulfilling as they can during this chapter of their lives.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering homecare in Frederick County, VA, please contact the caring staff at LivinRite Home Care.
Call Us Today at (703) 634-9991.
Serving Northern Virginia, The Valley, and Surrounding Communities.
Sources:
http://www2.erie.gov/seniorservices/index.php?q=heat-stress
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