If your beloved mother or father has diabetes, you already know that there are a lot of things that can go wrong. And there are a lot of lifestyle recommendations. Home health care can encourage your senior to take medications on time and in the required doses. Home health care aides are also good at encouraging lifestyle habits that keep diabetics healthy.
Food Preparation
Home Health Care Pompano Beach FL – Home Health Care Can Help Diabetics Stay HealthyDiet is the key to managing diabetes. Diabetics need to avoid refined sugar altogether, while limiting other carbohydrates. Many foods approved for diabetics must still be consumed in small portions, often no more than one cup.
The home health care aide is skilled at knowing which foods are best to maintain the health of a diabetic. These professionals are also good at knowing what foods to encourage as substitutes. For example, if a patient wants strawberry ice cream, the home aide can suggest a bowl of fresh strawberries and sugarless whipped cream instead.
If a loss of taste and/or smell has made a diabetic lose appetite, home health care aides are skilled at encouraging eating. Sometimes a diabetic will not eat big meals, but can be persuaded to eat small portions several times a day to keep the patient’s strength up.
If a diabetic has lost all or some of his teeth, the home care aide will prepare food that does not need a lot of chewing to encourage appetite and keep the patient well-nourished. Similarly, these aides also monitor salt intake to comply with a dietician’s recommendations. Food can be flavored with spices and other flavor makers to make up for the lack of salt.
Monitoring Symptoms
Home health care aides are also skilled at monitoring the red flags of diabetes including:
Peripheral neuropathy. Neuropathy is a condition of the nerves, which often causes numbness in feet and hands. This kind of neuropathy is common in diabetics, and the numbness can cause a patient to neglect injuries, especially to feet. Home health care professionals routinely inspect feet for damage that the patient might not feel.
Dehydration. Diabetics are at risk of dehydration which causes fatigue, muscle pain, and confusion. Dehydration occurs because the patient doesn’t get thirsty as often as a healthy person does. Also the diabetic’s kidneys don’t process fluids effectively, contributing to dehydration.
Hyperglycemia. Unfortunately, in elderly patients, hyperglycemia can fly under the radar because of biological changes that occur in old age. Again, a home health care aide is paying close attention to your senior on a daily basis. Therefore, she is likely to be first to notice the symptoms of hyperglycemia, even if they don’t show up on a glucose test.
In conclusion, diabetes represents a challenge for adult children of the elderly. Elderly diabetics need to stay hydrated, eat right, and comply with other lifestyle recommendations of their doctors. It may be impossible for family members of an older diabetic to ensure that all of these risks are monitored daily. Home health care can definitely bridge the gap between what a family can do and what needs to be done.
Sources: https://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/content/18/3/162
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/in-depth/diabetes-management/art-20045803
If you or a family member are in need of hiring Home Health Care Services in Pompano Beach FL, call the caring professionals at Star Multi Care today at (954) 870-4770. Providing service in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Delray Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Lauderhill, Margate, Pompano Beach and Tamarac.
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