Home > Blog > February 2018 > How Can You Help Your Aging Loved One Monitor Her Health?

How Can You Help Your Aging Loved One Monitor Her Health?

Posted: 2/23/2018 10:04 AM by Interim HealthCare

There's a lot that goes into keeping track of overall health and the key can be paying attention to signs along the way. Here are just a few ways your elderly family member can get a better handle on how she's doing.

Keep a Variety of Journals or Logs
Journals and logs are a really easy way for your senior to keep track of daily progress and to look back and see how far she's come. She might want to keep several different types of logs or just one in which she notates whatever information she's interested in at the time. Some examples of journals and logs might include:

Workout journals
Food journals
Sleep diaries
Overall health journals
Mood journals
Medications and side effects logsKeeping track of these different types of information gives you and your aging family member some data to take to her doctor's appointments.

Keep up with Checkups
Speaking of those doctor's appointments, if your elderly family member isn't keeping up with checkups and follow up appointments, that’s not going to help her make much progress. Help her to keep up with when her next appointment is and what she needs to do. If transportation is a problem, consider hiring elderly care providers who can do the driving. That gives your senior one less thing to worry about.

Focus on Smaller Changes Rather than Bigger Ones
Small changes can have a bigger impact than your elderly family member might think. Instead of worrying about completely overhauling how she eats or her workout routine, consider making much smaller changes that she can build on down the road. For example, switching out one or two processed meals a week for home-cooked meals gives her a running start on relying far less on convenience foods in the future.

Consider Hiring Some Experts
Your senior family member might not think that she needs to work with a personal trainer, but in reality working with a personal trainer can help her to understand all the ways that she can adapt exercises to meet her needs and abilities a little better. Working with a dietician can help her to find recipes that are easy to make and that are much healthier than some of the recipes she's relied on in the past.
The more tuned in that your elderly family member is to her health and her progress toward better health the easier it will be for her to see all the gains she's making. Keep the process simple and easy so that it's not a hassle for her to keep up with everything.

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