The care of your parents who are elderly, is similar to the nursing of children, as both demand relentless care, attention, and engagement. But it is not stress-free.
Many find that elderly nursing is exhausting. Parents and children often have argumentative clashes over simple disagreements. Children believe they have more awareness about healthcare challenges and preventive measures, while parents think otherwise.
Children also believe their efforts will ease their parents’ old age life. That is why many prefer nursing homes for their elderly parents for better care when they cannot assist them.
These services are an inevitable choice when their parents have an underlying healthcare condition and need 24/7 specialized care and monitoring. But nursing homes are not necessary for every elderly.
Your parents do not need nursing services if you provide them with a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment at home.
Photo by Cottonbro.
Home-based care is safer for your parents, and you can save on unnecessary expenditures. Attending to your parents is not unmanageable, so do not overstress.
The following sections explore how you can attend to your parents at home and ensure their happiness and health.
1. Offer them financial support
Mostly, old age people often struggle to make ends meet. They do not have any source of passive income after their retirements, which is barely enough to keep their kitchen functional.
In such cases, they struggle to maintain their health or follow up with physicians if they have underlying healthcare issues.
Hence, financial support can minimize their challenges and help them lead a comfortable and independent life. You can also connect them to support groups and agencies to manage healthcare expenses.
Many agencies work with the motive to assist senior citizens and veterans regarding their healthcare expenditure. For instance, asbestos trust fund payouts help or compensate veterans suffering from occupational health problems like mesothelioma.
If your elderly parents also have an occupational healthcare challenge, you can help them receive financial assistance.
2. Provide them with a healthy diet
A healthy diet is essential for the quality of life of your parents, like everyone else. It keeps their mind and body fit and helps them lead a healthy and independent life even at a late age.
In contrast, nutritional deficiency can accelerate aging and age-related health complications in your elderly parents.
For instance, a poor diet reduces their physical strength and immunity. And they are vulnerable to various healthcare challenges like early cataracts, anaemia, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and dementia.
They also take longer to recover from minor infections, injuries, and complications with poor diet and immunity.
Hence, keep their diet in check. Make sure they eat wholesome and healthy food and help them maintain a regular dietary schedule. These simple habits have a significant role in their life quality and longevity.
Related read: How work-from-home creatives can stay productive.
3. Engage them in physical activities
An active routine and lifestyle are as essential for the well-being of older people as youngsters. Strength-building exercises and activities help them keep in shape, minimizing the risks of obesity, diabetes, osteoarthritis, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases.
Active and healthy older people are less at risk of developing mental health issues like Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression, anxiety, insomnia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and substance abuse.
Workouts and exercise keep their mind and body fit and delay their aging process. As a result, they stay fit, energetic, independent and productive for years to come.
But make sure they practice safe workouts. Challenging and intense exercises can overstrain their bodies and lead to muscular or skeletal dislocation and pain.
4. Maintain house cleanliness
Your elderly parents do not have a strong physique and physical strength like you to overcome the side effects of healthcare challenges.
Hence, make sure illnesses remain at bay from your parents. And proper house cleaning is one way to ensure they do not come in contact with disease-causing germs and pathogens.
Otherwise, poor home hygiene can increase their vulnerability to dermatological, pulmonary, urinary, and digestive tract stomach infections.
Frequent attack of germs also delays their healing from an underlying health problem. A messy and disorganized home also affects their psychological health and raises stress levels. Thus clean your house thoroughly every day.
Help them with their hygiene and wash their bedsheets and clothes if they cannot manage themselves. If it is overwhelming for you, hire a maid to assist them in their hygiene and household chores.
5. Maintain their connection with friends and relatives
Social connectivity is crucial for the mental and physical health of aging buddies. Intermingling and sharing with their social circle are essential for their health and well-being as it is for youngsters.
Otherwise, isolation, loneliness, and social distancing affect health the same as any underlying healthcare condition.
Studies show that loneliness accelerates cognitive decline and promotes age-related psychological conditions like forgetfulness, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly.
Thus do not force them to stay at home or engage in thought-processing in isolation. And maintain their connectivity with friends and other relatives.
You can use modern connectivity platforms and means if you cannot spare more time from your personal and professional commitments.
6. Spare time for family recreation
Your parents exhaust from their daily life monotony and stress out as you do. Even if they do back-to-back professional responsibilities as young people, they also undergo physical, emotional, and psychological strain and exhaustion.
Life’s challenges, unpredictable situations, family issues, and social dealings can jeopardize and exhaust their well-being. Hence, they also need time to relax and rejuvenate away from home and the same boring routine.
So a family vacation once in a while is the best idea to relieve their stress and fatigue. They can also relive and recollect a few quality moments with their children and grandchildren and freshen up their mood in a new and refreshing environment.
But if you cannot afford that, a family dinner outside the home once a week can refresh their minds.
Conclusion
Aging does not mean your parents do not have any purpose, ambition, or engagement in life. Their requirements are similar to any young person.
Remember, they are valuable to you as you are to them, so ensure their active engagement in their life. And do not sideline from them, but maintain an interactive and healthy relationship with them.