When your elderly family member starts to have difficulty eating, this is potentially a larger problem if it doesn’t get addressed quickly. Without the right nutrients every day, your elderly family member can quickly experience malnutrition. Working with personal care at home and your senior’s doctor are just two of the ways you can get a handle on what’s happening.
Talk with Her about What Specifically Is Causing Trouble
If you’re going to help your senior to solve her struggles with eating, you need to fully understand what is giving her trouble. Is the main problem cooking healthy meals that she wants to eat or is the problem shopping for groceries? The problem could also be a mechanical one, in which your senior literally has trouble eating. Sit down with your senior and talk through what she’s experiencing and what you might be able to do to turn the situation around.
Develop a Plan for Ensuring There Are Healthy Choices and Make Meal Preparation Easier
Shopping for healthy foods and knowing what healthy meals to make can be exhausting for your aging family member. One idea is to work with her doctor or a nutritionist to come up with menus and recipes that support your senior’s health needs. There are options for shopping, too, ranging from home delivery to working with elder care professionals who can shop for your senior and help her stock her fridge.
If meal preparation, cleanup, and all of the other tangential tasks related to cooking are what challenges your senior the most, there are options here, too. Personal care ay home providers can make quick work of tasty and healthy meals and snacks to have on hand for your senior. You’ll feel better knowing that your elderly family member has that extra help, especially if you’re not able to cook for her.
Find Help from Personal Care at Home for Your Senior if She’s Having Bigger Trouble
Another factor that gets overlooked is that your senior may be starting to have physical difficulty with eating. Personal care at home can help your elderly family member to eat, especially if she has trouble holding utensils. Caregivers can also help by ensuring that she’s fully chewing and swallowing her food.
Follow up to Make Sure the Plan Keeps Working for Her
Over time, the plan that you and your senior put together for her may work quite well. But needs change and she may need different types of help or even more help sooner than you think. For instance, she may be able to eat on her own at first, but that can change quickly. Bringing personal care at home into the picture might be a good idea sooner than you realize. When you’re keeping tabs on what’s working and what isn’t, you’re better able to respond quickly to those changing needs.
It’s always easier to avoid a health problem for your senior when you can, and addressing issues around food and eating as soon as you notice that there’s a problem can keep her from developing bigger issues.
If you or an aging loved one are considering your Personal Care Options please contact the caring staff at Connect Our Elders today! (858) 222-9241
Connect Our Elders provides free advisory and senior care planning across the U.S.
She is an experienced business development and sales professional in the non-medical home care industry and nonprofit sector.
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