Golden Heart Senior Care is proud to announce that Nina Jones is the March 2021 Employee of the Month. Nina is an exceptional employee and Golden Heart is fortunate to have her on our team. She cares deeply for her clients and always puts their needs first. Nina is Simply the Best!
Nina, thank you for being such a wonderful Caregiver!
Your elderly family member might develop dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, for a variety of reasons. What’s really important in managing dysphagia is ensuring that your senior is able to eat in order to get the nutrition that she needs. This might mean looking at food and meals a little bit differently since liquids need to be thicker and solid foods might be too difficult.
Vegetables and fruits lend themselves well to purees, which can be thick enough for your senior to eat easily. Cooked beans, spinach, broccoli, and squashes are all full of vitamins and other nutrients that your elderly family member needs. When cooked, they’re also very easy to puree into a thick soup. Fruits are easy to turn into a fruit soup or to add to a smoothie or shake.
When calories need to count, don’t overlook healthy fats. Avocados, nut butters, and Greek yogurt are excellent choices. These foods have plenty of protein and fiber, but they’re also high in the types of fats that your senior needs in order to stay healthy. They’re also filling and can help your elderly family member to avoid losing too much weight.
One of the biggest staples of your senior’s new diet might be smoothies and shakes. While commercial nutritional shakes are plentiful on the market, they’re not always a great idea. They tend to contain a lot of sugar and possibly other ingredients that aren’t a good choice for your senior. Homemade shakes can include plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and you can customize them every day for your senior’s tastes.
It’s really important to consider your senior’s overall health and not just getting more calories into her however you can. That can be one goal, but her other health issues may mean that certain foods just aren’t a good idea no matter how they’re prepared. Talk to your senior’s doctor about what she should be eating and what alternatives might work best for her.
This new way of eating in order to keep your senior nourished while she deals with dysphagia can be complicated for both of you. It can help to have home care providers there to help your senior with meal preparation and even with eating if that has become a challenge, too.
March is Deep Vein Thrombosis Month, which makes it a good time to learn a little more about DVT and how it can impact your senior’s life. DVT is a serious condition that can become emergent very quickly. DVT involves blood clots forming in the deeper veins of your senior’s body, typically in the legs. Those blood clots can break free, wreaking havoc throughout the body. Learn more about DVT and how it affects your senior, as well as how elderly care can help.
Pulmonary embolisms, or PE, can occur when a clot or a small piece of a clot breaks off from the DVT and travel through your senior’s blood vessels and into the lungs. Large enough clots can block blood flow, which can be a fatal situation. This is the equivalent of a stroke in your senior’s brain. An elderly care provider can be with your senior when you can’t, making it possible for them to spot the signs of a stroke earlier than if they were alone.
A pulmonary embolism can also cause blood flow to and from the heart to stop or to slow down dramatically, especially when the pulmonary arteries are clogged. As the heart works harder to try to get that blood flowing, damage is created, even possibly a heart attack. The damage afterward, even with a mild pulmonary embolism, can dramatically shorten your senior’s life.
Post-thrombotic syndrome happens during or after a DVT. Your senior might experience chronic swelling and pain in her leg. The swelling impedes blood flow, which creates serious issues in terms of keeping her extremities healthy. Skin can start to break down and the worst-case scenario can include amputation. Elderly care services can assist your senior following a hospital stay for DVT.
Preventing deep vein thrombosis is crucial for your senior’s overall health. If she’s been on bed rest or is not as mobile as she used to be, moving more can help. It’s important that she avoid crossing her legs or doing other things that can block blood flow in the legs. Other issues can contribute to DVT, such as being overweight and smoking. Talk to your senior’s doctor about her risk factors and about what she can do to prevent DVT.
Dealing with a DVT diagnosis can feel like a lot for your senior. It can help for her to have some hands-on assistance, both with tasks that have become more difficult and to assist with mobility concerns. Elderly care providers can take on that role for your senior, ensuring that she’s safe and has someone with her in case her situation changes.
One of the reasons your elderly family member might be so concerned about memory loss is that this is often an early sign of dementia. But memory loss is related to other health issues, too, and the memory loss she’s experiencing could be reversible.
One reason it’s so important to minimize fall risk is because your senior can become seriously injured. Most injuries involve hips and wrist or arm injuries, but head injuries are also a big problem. Your elderly family member could have a bruise on her brain or even a concussion. Head injuries are nothing to play with, so she needs to talk to her doctor right away.
It’s a lot more difficult to spot situations such as a tumor or infection in the brain. Memory loss might be what causes your senior to talk to her doctor, who runs the tests necessary to discover these situations. Not all tumors equal untreatable cancer, so finding the problem early is always better for your senior’s recovery.
When your elderly family member isn’t eating enough or she isn’t eating well, she can suffer from malnutrition. Not getting enough nutrients means that her body cannot function as well as it should, and that includes her brain. She may start to experience memory issues, lack of concentration, irritability, and even depression due to lack of nutrition.
Side effects from medication can cover a lot of ground. One of many different types of side effects can include memory loss. This side effect can occur even if your senior has been taking a specific medication for a while. Changes to dosage or to how the medication is made can have an impact. If your senior notices that her side effects from medications are changing, she needs to let her doctor know. Senior care providers can watch for signs of side effects from medications, as well as remind your senior loved one when to take their medication.
There are many other health issues that can mess with your senior’s memory, too. If she’s dealing with liver issues, kidney issues, or even thyroid issues, those can affect her memory. She needs to talk to her doctor about how she can adjust to improve her memory.
Memory issues can be scary for your senior. It helps to have someone else there with her on a regular basis, like senior care providers. They can help with whatever needs to be done and also ensure that she is safe.
You will find, as you support your elderly mother through a variety of health issues, that it’s no easy task. While it may have seemed relatively simple enough at the beginning (check in on her, get some groceries and drop them off, drive her to a doctor’s appointment, etc.), the time commitment is significantly increasing.
Maybe you never considered yourself a caregiver, but that’s precisely what you are. Her expectations may have changed as well over this time. In the beginning, she may have appreciated whatever help you could offer, but now it might be an expectation.
Given enough time, this can place an incredible amount of pressure on that family caregiver. You.
What kind of stress are you under?
You might not feel the same kind of stress as you would if you had lost your job, were unable to pay the rent or mortgage, or otherwise financially strapped. However, stress is stress, no matter what is the cause and how significant it is affecting you.
As a caregiver, stress is a part of life. You simply can’t get around that fact. Even if you have a great relationship with this individual, are more than willing to help out, over time it’s going to place increased pressure on your life.
It could affect your sleep at night, relationships, and even your career. As a caregiver for your elderly mother, eventually that pressure and stress is going to take a toll on you.
How might caregiver stress manifest itself in your life?
Without adequate sleep, you might be unfocused, have an increased risk of safety issues yourself, or even snap at others. You might have a shorter temper now as a result and find yourself losing your cool far more often than is normal.
That stress, prolonged, can lead to serious health issues on top of that. You might have an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, high blood pressure, and the list is long and growing.
The older you are, the more likely caregiver stress is going to impact you in more significant ways. If it takes a toll on you to the point where you simply can’t do the same things you use to, then how beneficial are you going to be as a caregiver moving forward?
The best thing anyone can do is discuss the prospect of hiring home care to help. You can still be a caregiver for your mother, but with a home care aide helping, that can make a world of difference for everyone, including you.
IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE IS CONSIDERING CAREGIVERS IN LAS VEGAS, NV, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT GOLDEN HEART SENIOR CARE OF SUMMERLIN. 702-800-4616.