Great Tips For Senior Citizens Trying to Keep Their Minds Sharp

As you get older, the number of physical and mental changes you experience will grow. If you have chosen to age in place, then you need to work on staying one step ahead of health problems. Not only do you need to focus on things like diet and exercise to stay healthy, you also need to figure out how to keep your mind sharp. 

Cognitive decline is a problem that affects nearly 13% of the senior citizens in the United States. Luckily, there are a number of things you can do to slow this decline and keep your mind firing on all cylinders. If you are trying to keep your mind sharp as you age, consider the great tips in this article.  

Realize the Importance of Sleep

Your mind and body need a few basic things to thrive. One of the main things the human mind needs to stay sharp is the right amount of rest. Ideally, you want to get between seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Not only is sleep great for your brain health, it can also help you increase your energy levels during the day. 

If you are struggling to sleep at night, then you need to develop a routine to follow. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day can be beneficial. You also need to eliminate any distractions that could prohibit you from sleeping things. Loud televisions and smartphones are just a few of the things that can keep you up at night. Removing these distractions can help you wind down and get to sleep. If you have tried these suggestions with no success, reach out to your primary care physician for some help. 

Assess Your Daily Diet

Did you realize that healthy foods can delay the onset of certain memory diseases? If you are currently consuming a steady diet of junk food and sugar, you need to stop immediately. Instead of choosing unhealthy options, you need to consume more nuts, whole grains, fish and berries. If you are unable to cook meals due to physical limitations, then hiring a home care provider to assist you is a good idea. 

The team at Like Family Home Care can provide you with things like cooking, cleaning, transportation and personal care. With the right help, you can consume healthy meals and give your brainpower a boost. 

Let Your Creative Side Shine Through

Having a hobby or passion you can spend time performing is also important when trying to keep your mind sharp. Creative pursuits like pottery, painting and knitting allow you to give your mind a workout. Letting your creative side shine through can also help you control stress levels. If you don’t currently have a creative outlet, then you need to learn a new skill. There are tons of classes you can attend and online videos you can watch to learn a new creative skill. 

If you are serious about keeping your mind sharp, you need to implement the tips in this article.

Tackle Potential Home Hazards For Elderly Sooner Rather Than Later

Experiencing physical limitations is a natural part of the aging process. Aging can negatively impact a person’s sensory organs affecting smell, taste, hearing, touch, and vision. When any of these sensory changes begin to happen to older adults, their homes can become hazardous to their health. 

We can undermine some of the negative consequences of aging on a loved one’s lifestyle by being proactive. Tackling specific challenges before they become issues will allow us to provide the best quality of living and safety for our elderly family and friends. One of the most helpful ways you can impact an aging loved one’s life is by addressing the possible hazards in their home early before they cause frustration or injury. 

Falls are the number one cause of an older adult’s injury that potentially leads to a diminished quality of life. You can help keep at-home falls and accidents at bay by implementing a few changes in your aging loved one’s home. 

Secure Or Remove Loose Rugs

Rugs are essential for warmth and comfort within a home as they provide a soft, insulated surface over cold, hard flooring. However, rugs are also potential hazards for aging people as they can easily slide and bunch up if not appropriately secured to the floor. Ensure all the rugs in the house are secured in place and remove any. You may consider replacing small flimsy rugs with more oversized heavy rugs to decrease the chances of slipping. 

Keep Stairs Clear From Clutter

It is easy to use stairs as waiting areas for items we need to take on our way or down. As we age, navigating stairs becomes trickier and, thus, more dangerous. To be safe, remove any items from stairways so that your loved one is less likely to be tripped up on their ascent and descent. This also means securing or removing stair runners to ensure sure footing. 

Rethink Kitchen Organization

While most aging people cook less and less at home, they spend ample time preparing meals and snacks for themselves in their kitchen. Many accidents happen in the kitchen due to overreaching, overextending, and becoming off-balance. Take time to reorganize the kitchen, remove unused items out of the way, and place most used items within easy reach. The less mess in the kitchen to maneuver around is better for the safety of your aging loved one. 

Start Home Care Services Earlier Rather Than Later

Many of us consider elderly home care services reserved for when a person can no longer safely live at home by themselves. However, you can extend the amount of time your aging loved one remains happily in their home by employing home care services earlier rather than later. Consult your professional home care services agency to see what services they offer and how these services can help your aging loved one thrive. 

Tips to Protect Your Senior Loved One from a Fall

It’s estimated that one in four Americans over the age of 65 fall each year. In fact, falls are the top cause of nonfatal and fatal injuries in seniors. 

Falls often cause head injuries, broken bones, hip fractures, and other issues. Also, falls without major injuries may cause an older adults to become depressed or fearful and prevent them from remaining active. 

While falls can be devastating for some seniors, there are some tips you can use to help protect your senior loved one from a fall. Keep reading to learn more. 

Find Out Their Concerns 

It’s a good idea to ask your senior loved one if they are worried about falling. Some older adults know falling is a risk, but they don’t think it will happen to them, or if it does, they don’t think they will be hurt – even if they have fallen before. 

If your senior loved one is worried about balance, dizziness, or falling, talk to their doctor. They can assess the risk and make suggestions on services that can help. 

Talk About Underlying Health Issues 

It’s important to find out if your senior loved one has any issues managing their health. For example, do they forget to take their medicine? Are they having side effects? Is it more becoming challenging for them to do the things they used to? 

You should also make sure they take advantage of the preventative benefits offered by Medicare, like Annual Wellness visits. Make sure they are comfortable speaking openly with their doctor about any issues or concerns they have. 

Find Out When Their Last Eye Checkup Was 

Does your older love one wear glasses? If so, be sure they have a current prescription and that they use their glasses as recommended by their eye doctor. It can be dangerous for them to use a tint-changing lens when going from outside to inside. Bifocals may also be problematic for use on stairs, which means it’s important to stay cautious. If your senior loved one is dealing with vision issues, it’s a good idea to consult with their eye doctor to see what options are available for them. 

Notice if They Have Trouble Walking

Have you noticed your senior loved one is holding onto walls, furniture, or someone else when they walk? Do they have trouble moving or getting up from a sitting position? 

If so, these are signs they may need to go to a physical therapist. With this medical service, your senior loved one can start to improve their gait, strength, and balance. 

Preventing Falls for Your Senior Loved One

If you want to make sure your senior loved one doesn’t fall or suffer an injury, be sure to keep the tips and information here in mind. Doing this will pay off and help ensure your family member stays as safe as possible. Be sure to keep the tips above in mind; they will pay off and provide you with peace of mind.

A Continuum Of Care In Senior Services

When we think about what it means to operate a truly caring senior support business like ours, we see it as a continuum of what families have had in place prior to looking around for a nursing home or facility. Most of them have put quite a lot of work into caring for their elderly family member!

Our mission is to maintain that continuum of care and not allow it to degrade or fall apart over time.

That works in some particular ways in terms of anticipating a person's needs and their overall situations. We like to advance that approach to make sure that we offer a quality of care that others have a hard time matching. 

Meal Prep

This is one of the aspects of care that we take very seriously. People have their preferences, and even food allergies and other issues that determine what their diet should be.

Specifically for seniors, they often have some dietary restrictions, either in regard to their medications, or previous health conditions or medical history.

So we keep that in mind, and build a profile so that we can treat the individual as an individual, and take care of them the right way.

Personal Care

Everybody needs some type of personal care routine, whether it's self-care or caregivers applying personal care to someone who can't do it all themselves.

There is a spectrum of services and again, there's a continuum from what a person was used to before, to what they get accustomed to when they enter a facility. We want to make that transition smooth for our seniors! Part of that is a good intake process, but it’s also, at the end of the day, a commitment level from our staff. So shout out to our people!

Transportation and Mobility

This is another aspect that we assess very carefully when we take in a new nursing home resident.

Mobility and transportation are key parts of a daily routine and overall care plan. Will the person be able to access the outdoors during temperate seasons? How will the person move from the facility to an away time with family or some other trip?

All of this has to be worked out in detail. It doesn't just happen by magic. Our administrators and our frontline caregiving staff know this, and that's why we've invested in the types of communications that support your senior family members as they stay with us. For more, plan a family meeting and sit down with us to get acquainted with our care model. 

How to Make Seniors Comfortable at Home

The aging process can take its toll on seniors and make them feel lonely, uncomfortable, and miserable. Seniors will experience various types of ups and downs they are unable to control. Some seniors might experience loss of mobility, joint stiffness and pains, loss of muscle strength, and several other health issues. For a senior to cope with age-related issues, you need to think of the best ways to make your loved one more comfortable. 

Read on to learn how you can make your home more senior-friendly.

Install a Ramp

Going up and down the stairs can be a challenging task for senior citizens that are suffering from aching joints or balance problems. Therefore, you should consider installing a ramp, which makes it easier for seniors to navigate the stairs. A wheelchair ramp is a cost-effective solution that can help to improve the life of an aging parent in your home with limited mobility. 

Proper Lighting

Some senior citizens develop poor eyesight, which becomes problematic if you don’t have quality lighting in your home. Poor lighting in your home makes a senior more susceptible to tripping, falling, and bumping into objects they can’t see. Poor lighting also makes it more difficult for a senior to move around during the night. Make sure you install quality lights in every room in your home to keep your space properly illuminated. Quality lighting reduces the likelihood for accidents to occur and helps a senior to maintain balance.

Bathroom Safety

Ensure the safety of your bathroom by installing grab bars, rubber mats to prevent slipping, and setting the thermostat to a comfortable temperature to avoid accidental burns. Installing a raised toilet seat with handlebars is also beneficial for a senior and makes it easier for them to sit or stand.

Create a Comfortable Environment for Your Aging Family Members

Make a list of the best ways you can help your loved one transition through the aging process. The changes that you implement in your home will do so much for an elderly family member. By keeping your home safe, you have the peace of mind that your environment will be less accidental and dangerous.

Do you have the interest to get special in-home care services for an aging parent? At Like Family Home Care, we provide convenient home care solutions that align with the needs of senior citizens. It is our pleasure to connect with you and to help enhance the life of your loved one.

Tips For Engaging Children With Elderly Family Members

Transitioning through the stages of life is a complicated and deeply personal process. As we age, we become less needed, less busy, and less active in family affairs, leading to a feeling of disconnection and isolation. As life seems to pass our elderly family members by, we strive to find ways to engage them in our day-to-day activities and, more importantly, in our children's lives. 

It can be easy for those fortunate enough to care for their elderly loved ones at home to lose sight of the difference between authentic engagement and daily routine obligations. Seniors who can remain at home with professional care are still subject to feelings of isolation and loneliness. 

Participation in the family encourages the feeling of being needed, wanted, and seen. This article will outline tips for engaging young family members with their elderly loved ones to build and strengthen bonds that benefit both parties. 

Create A Memory Book

Children of all ages can participate in creating a memory book with their elderly loved ones. Whether utilizing a traditional photo album, scrapbooking, or video graphics project, this activity connects children with their family member's history as well as the memories made together. 

In this way, the child and senior are given a platform to talk, listen, learn, and share their memories and favorite things. 

Build A Birdhouse Or Birdfeeder

Many seniors spend time in their rooms enjoying the view from their windows. Birdhouses and bird feeders offer the opportunity to invite feathered (and sometimes furry) friends to visit, creating a more interactive and enjoyable experience. Children and their elderly loved ones can build birdhouses and bird feeders together, getting as creative as they want to be, resulting in a perfect collaborative project. 

This type of interactive activity offers both the senior and the child an opportunity to learn from each other and build something they can both enjoy afterward together. 

Hopes And Dreams Vision Board

Many seniors dare to dream as they feel that they have already lived the best years of their lives. Children foster hope, and having them create hope and dreams vision boards with their senior loved ones is an inspirational and rewarding experience for them both. Seniors have vast knowledge, which they love to pass on to those coming up in the ranks. When children work with elderly loved ones on future ideas, plans, and dreams, the project creates lasting bonds and hope for the future. 

Who Wants To Do What?

We get it – family decisions are difficult. Especially for a family of any size, it's not usually all that common for everybody to come to the same conclusion at the same time.

This applies to all sorts of things. It can be hard to get everybody to agree on where everyone wants to have dinner. It can be a lot harder to talk about bigger things, for instance, where someone should spend their days in their reclining years.

Frankly, it's just a big decision, and family members don't have an incentive to start out all on the same page. People have their own closely held emotions about the subject. There are all kinds of considerations, from an investment in a legacy property, to the need for skilled nursing care or assistive staff for an elderly family member - and everything in between. 

Even in our families, we don't agree 100% of the time. But there are ways to streamline the process and resolve some of the conflicts around where mom or dad or some other family member is going to go.

Starting with Compassion

Our intake process is based on this reality – that families will often need help consulting and coming to an agreement or a decision on where a family member will live.

We feel it's critically important, in this specific field, to avoid high-pressure situations, and to try to reach out in a calm and compassionate way to talk about alternatives. When people feel that nobody has a dog in the fight, they're more likely to be able to brainstorm and come up with a consensus.

The Setup

We also have another key responsibility that helps in resolving these types of issues. Simply put, our responsibility is to make a plan that's great for mom or dad, and finding things that people are going to want to do, so that a lot of that back-and-forth gets eliminated from the very start.

That's where we can talk about meal planning and accommodations and all of those good things that we put into the business model, specifically to support our families and their elderly family members. But again, it starts with being able to meet and think together and come up with a solution that works for everyone. Talk to Like Family Home Care about the needs that your family has, and we can come up with a workable plan together, so that at the end of the day, everyone can rest easy about what’s happening. 

4 Tips to Choosing the Best Senior Care Services

Finding the perfect professionals to care for your aging parents can seem a little overwhelming. You might not know where to start or how to learn about the safest environment that’s suitable for your loved ones.

There are many difficult decisions that you will have to make to ensure the safety and protection of your parents. Let’s take a look at 4 tips that you should consider when you’re searching for the ideal senior care services for your folks.

1. Verify Credentials

You need to check the credentials of the agency that you’re considering. A thorough screening and background check of the caregivers is necessary. You must perform this important step to ensure that your parents will be given proper care.

Make sure the professional staff at the agency is capable of providing top-notch services. An agency that is composed of compassionate and competent professionals gives you peace of mind that your parents are in excellent hands.

2. Determine the Care You Need

What type of care will your aging parents need? Are you looking for an agency that provides medical or non-medical services?

Your parents could require skilled medical care around the clock, special equipment to breathe, mobility assistance, help with taking baths, and other necessities. Determine the kind of care you need so that you can find the most efficient staff for your parents. 

3. Ask for Recommendations

Asking for recommendations is an effective way for you to gather information about the best senior care services for your folks. You can get recommendations from your doctor, friends, neighbors, lawyer, and other reliable people you know.

There is a good chance they will know about reputable home care provider companies that you can trust.

4. Check References

How do people feel about the company that you want to hire? Checking the references of a professional home care agency gives you more insight about their background.

Good home care providers should be willing to provide you with references upon your request. This is a way for you to learn about positive or negative feedback from past clients to help you assess the reputation of the service.

You can also contact the company directly to ensure that your parents will receive exceptional care.

Help Seniors to Live Their Best Life

Family home care services come in handy during the golden years of your loved ones. When you’re unable to assist, you have the option to rely on a friendly, compassionate staff to care for your folks.

Do you have questions or concerns about getting the best care for your loved ones? Please contact our dedicated care manager to learn how we can assist you.