Senior citizens often face many health challenges associated with aging. With their declining health, most of them deal with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, Parkinson’s disease, and other chronic diseases that deteriorate the body. Although such conditions may be common to seniors, dealing with a chronic condition puts them and their families in extreme worry.
If you have a senior family member who battles with a chronic disease, it is important that you understand and know their needs. Seniors with chronic conditions may have different and specific needs so it is best to know how chronic disease management in seniors works to provide the best care for them.
Finding Reliable Support through Chronic Disease Management
Caregivers and family members need to specially talk with the doctors and research more information about their loved one’s illness to know how to help them at home. You may also find a senior homecare program in your community such as New Wave Home Care to provide professional care for your senior member.
At New Wave Home Care, we provide reliable support that your family and senior loved one needs to live a safe and fulfilling life despite their health condition. With compassionate caregivers who understand the challenges your senior loved ones have, rest assured that your family member is on their way to an improved life.
Coping with multiple chronic conditions and managing various treatments can be problematic while maintaining the quality of life while it is a real challenge. It can be life-changing to anyone, especially to the older people dealing with multiple chronic conditions. It is a challenge that they cannot handle alone and thus, will need a lot of support and care from the people they trust.
The Role of Family in Chronic Disease Management In Seniors
Family members play a vital role in chronic disease management in seniors. Knowing that they have their families to depend on will provide tremendous relief to senior citizens coping with chronic illness.
Apart from the discomfort caused by their chronic illness, seniors may also experience anxiety, stress, and hopelessness which messes up their emotional state. As a family, the best thing that you can do is to sympathize with their emotional state and by being there for them. This alone provides the comfort they need to endure their condition.
Meaningful Ways to Support Seniors with Chronic Illness
For some people, having a family member who suffers from a chronic illness can be worrisome especially if they are already old. As someone who cares for them, you may feel the urge to help them and make them comfortable as possible.
Most seniors suffer from multiple chronic conditions, thus, family members need to know how to cope with a new diagnosis of their senior member. As family caregivers, being a beacon of support is one of the best care that you can provide someone with a complex illness.
Here are some meaningful ways on how you can support your senior loved one with a chronic illness:
1. Look out for changes.
No one would understand the difficulty of taking care of a senior loved one especially one who suffers from a chronic condition unless they have done it. Expect for the needs of your loved one to change over time as they go through treatments and have more diagnosis of their condition. It’s better to be aware of the changes so that you can anticipate what kind of assistant that they might need.
2. Keep the home safe for your senior member.
Make your home a safe place for your seniors to live in. Due to their health condition, some seniors may tend to be forgetful, may lose balance as they walk, or even forget that they’ve already taken their medication. This is why you need to make your home safe for them to not cause any accidents.
3. Be aware of their condition.
Talk to the doctors about your senior member’s condition for you to be able to attend to what they need. Since they may need assistance most of the time for almost anything, you need to be aware of how they may cope with their condition so you can help them.
4. Plan for the future.
When a senior adult is diagnosed with a chronic illness, it is important to start planning for the future starting from settling their health, legal, and financial affairs in order. Encourage your loved one to get involved with the planning while they can still make decisions.
5. Consider asking for assistance for you and your senior loved one.
Arranging for care professionals to assist in taking care of your senior loved one is an ideal solution in providing them the utmost care that they need. These home care services can help provide specialized assistance for your senior member, which may be difficult for family members to do alone. Arranging for such service also allows caretakers to rest and do other things aside from caregiving.
If you are looking for a reliable home care service to help take care of your aging loved one, New Wave Home Care offers specialized non-medical assistance to manage the unique needs of the seniors such as transferring patients, companionship, transportation, managing symptoms and other services that are designed to help them maintain quality of life.
