Home Care: Things like aromatherapy can help everyone including seniors.
Believe it or not, scents have a huge part in the way our brains remember things. Scents pass the hypothalamus and go straight to the center of the brain. This means those scents that seniors love can actually trigger memories. Smells can easily trigger emotions and memories that can help make a senior happy. A home care provider can help your senior to find good scents that bring back good memories.
Smells and memories are closely linked, and the good news is there are tons of activities that can promote smells.
In-home care can help find the scents that make a senior happy and find hobbies to work in different scents. Caring for an elderly person is a difficult task. Additionally, it’s challenging to be the person whose body or mind is deteriorating. Chronic stress can have a detrimental effect on both seniors’ and caregivers’ quality of life. Additionally, it increases your risk of developing serious physical and mental health problems.
Aromatherapy is a simple but effective non-drug stress management technique that leverages the powerful positive effect of scent on the body. Finding other activities that have strong smells associated can also be a good way for in-home care to ease the stress a senior feels, and encourage other happier memories to surface.
Activities That Have Strong Scents
In-home care can help find activities for the senior to start doing, and many of them you can do for free or very cheap. Here is a good list to start with.
Aromatherapy
Seniors can either buy aromatherapy already made with a small essential oil diffuser. This will allow them to create a nice space with scents throughout the house. If they want to take this a step further, they can try making their own scented oils with the help of in-home care. Certain scents may improve sleep, reduce stress, improve digestion, and even reduce anxiety. There are tons of books that can help a senior start learning about what scents will improve certain areas of their life.
Candle Making
The nice thing about candle making is there are starter kits that can be bought for seniors. In-home care can help dehydrate flowers, fruits, and more to add to the candles. Some seniors may want to add in some other scents to the candles that remind them of certain memories. They can also add in some dyes that help make the candle appealing.
Cooking With Seniors
Cooking not only allows the seniors to cook food for themselves but it also allows them to trigger happy memories. Maybe a memory of cooking with their mom and dad is brought up because they have made that dish with them in the past. This is a fun time for in-home care and a senior. It may be a way for the senior to connect with their caregiver and learn something new.
Baking
Not every senior will like to cook but some seniors may like to bake new things. This can be great for the holidays as well. It allows them to bake something that was in their family and maybe even pass on the secret recipe to someone else such as your home care provider.
If you or an aging loved-one is considering hiring Home Care in Lexington, MA, please contact the caring staff at Visiting Nurse & Community Care today. (781) 643-6090
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