Senior Care Tips: Your elderly family member has handled personal care tasks for herself for a long time now, but it might be time to make some adjustments to her routines.
That’s especially the case if these tasks are getting to be too much for her to handle on her own. Many aging adults find that having a schedule helps them to stick to their personal care routines. These senior care tips can help below.
Create Peaceful Space Around These Conversations
The most important thing to remember about hygiene discussions with your senior is that they need to be as peaceful and calm as possible. This helps to avoid shame and blame, both of which will only make the situation worse. If you and your elderly family member find that it’s incredibly difficult to talk about hygiene without getting upset, it might be time to look into personal care at home for her. Sometimes removing yourself from the conversation relieves embarrassment.
Let Your Senior Handle What She Can
Even if your senior needs a good bit of help with personal care at home, there are still tasks that she can handle. When you allow her to handle the self-care tasks that she can still do, that’s empowering for her. It can also help her to understand that you’re not there to take over or to remove any independence.
Put Together a Bathing Schedule with Your Senior
One solution that can help is to put together a schedule for bathing. This eliminates arguments about whether a bath or shower is necessary or not. If it’s on the calendar, then it’s time to take that shower or bath. You may need to compromise with her about how often is “often enough,” so be prepared to do so.
Senior Care Tips: Don’t Forget About Dental Care
Personal care isn’t just about bathing, though. It’s also about taking care of your senior’s dental health. Help her to remember to brush her teeth or to care for her dentures daily. This can also be another area where it’s helpful to have hands-on assistance from senior care providers. Consistency is key, especially when it comes to oral care. Your senior needs to have a healthy mouth in order to keep eating healthy foods.
Over time your senior’s needs around personal care may change and it may become easier for her to accept help when she needs it. Adapting her plan with these senior care tips, as needed, is easy with help from home care providers.