High blood pressure can be scary, especially if your elderly family member’s blood pressure is way higher than she realizes. Blood pressure issues can cause serious health problems if they’re ignored.
.
Monitor Blood Pressure. Daily
Keeping track of blood pressure numbers regularly is the best way to see how different solutions impact your senior’s health. If checking her blood pressure herself is difficult or she has a tough time remembering to check it, then home health care providers are a great solution. They’re able to accurately check and log blood pressure information to make sure that your senior’s doctor has updated information regularly.
Take Medication as Prescribed
Various different medications may be prescribed to your senior to help her manage her blood pressure issues. If those medications aren’t taken properly, they might not do what your senior’s medical providers hope they will. Having reminders about taking medication properly can keep your senior on track, and home health care providers can make a huge difference for your senior.
Address Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle changes can go a long way toward helping your elderly family member to reduce her blood pressure and to keep it under control. Getting plenty of sleep, watching what she eats, and quitting smoking and drinking alcohol are all possible lifestyle recommendations your senior might get from her doctor. It’s a lot easier to make those changes with some extra help.
Work on Stress Reduction
Stress can be a huge complication when dealing with all sorts of health issues, not just blood pressure. Getting stress under control can be tricky, but it involves taking all the same steps your aging family member already needs to try in order to manage her blood pressure. Finding ways to help her to let go of stressful tasks and situations can also help.
Hydrate Consistently
One lifestyle tip that deserves more attention is staying properly hydrated. This is a big deal for seniors in general, but proper hydration also helps to reduce high blood pressure. Your senior doesn’t have to start chugging scary amounts of water right away. It’s best to gradually increase water intake so that she’ll stick with drinking plenty of water.
Exercise as Recommended
If exercise is recommended by your senior’s doctor, then starting an exercise routine is an important step. As with water intake, it’s better if your elderly family member starts out slowly and gradually increases what she’s doing. That’s going to help her to get stronger with less risk of injury, too, which is vital for fall prevention and improving her health in other areas. Choosing a physical activity that she enjoys is another part that’s vital for ensuring that your elderly family member is able to stick with her new exercise routine.
Managing your senior’s blood pressure as well as you possibly can, might be more complicated than you expect, but it isn’t impossible. With the right assistance and tools in place, your elderly family member may be able to make more headway toward getting her blood pressure down to normal levels.
If you or an aging loved-one is considering Home Health Care in Cambridge, MA, or the surrounding areas please contact the caring staff at Visiting Nurse & Community Care today. (781) 643-6090