It can be so frustrating to try to do all the right things to address high blood pressure and still come up short. If that’s what your elderly family member is facing, she may need some extra help from home care assistance to make the big changes easier on her. But remind her that even with doing everything perfectly, she may still need to take her prescriptions exactly as recommended to see results.
Get the Details on Her Doctor’s Recommendations
Your senior’s doctor probably gave her a comprehensive list of recommendations regarding her blood pressure. If you don’t already know what was on the list, now is the time to find out. Some of the changes might be easy ones, like starting a regular exercise routine. But others might be a little more complicated and time-consuming.
Find Out What Exercise Does for Her
As long as your senior’s doctor clears her to exercise, find out what it does for her. If it’s been a while since she exercised, encourage her to start out slowly and to pace herself with whatever movement she chooses. She’s likely to feel awkward and uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier if she sticks with her new exercise practice. Work with her to find movement that she enjoys, because that’s going to be the most important part.
Make Some Tough Diet Choices
Odds are very good that dietary changes made the list of her doctor’s recommendations, too. Some changes, like reducing salt intake, are fairly universal suggestions. That might feel impossible to your elderly family member, though. Having help from elder care professionals with making tasty, healthy meals can make all the difference in how this ends up feeling for her.
Build Routines Around General Health
Your elderly family member may need to start adopting some new routines, especially around generally being healthier. That can mean different things to different people, so sit down with your elderly family member and talk about what being healthier would look and feel like for her. Once you know what she’s got in mind, it’s a lot easier to support her.
Reduce Stress as Much as Possible
Stress has a huge impact on blood pressure, but many people don’t realize that. If life in general is stressing your senior out, she may find it helpful to hand some tasks over to home care assistance. That one move can help your elderly family member to focus on her own health and well-being, which might be the biggest way she can start to experience results with lowering her blood pressure. Again, talk with your senior about what might help so that you can put those changes in place with her.
There are so many different factors that contribute to high blood pressure. If your elderly family member does need to take medication, that doesn’t mean that she failed or that she isn’t taking the best care of herself that she can. It just means that her body needs the extra help of medication to keep her blood pressure in healthy ranges.
IF YOU OR AN AGING LOVED ONE IS CONSIDERING HIRING HOME CARE ASSISTANCE IN SUNNYVALE, CA, PLEASE CONTACT THE CARING STAFF AT HOME HELPERS TODAY (408) 317-4969
