Sleep is crucial for your senior’s overall well-being, but it might be something that she and you are overlooking. These tools can help them to start to get a better handle on sleep every single night, which can make days better, too.
Adding Exercise to Her Daily Routine
If her doctor clears her to exercise, adding just a little bit of extra movement into her daily routine can be hugely helpful for your aging family member. Muscles and joints need to move and burning off a little bit of energy allows her body to truly rest when she’s ready to go to bed. Starting out with a complex or challenging exercise routine is a bad idea. Start slow and easy. A home care provider can also help your senior incorporate exercise into her daily routine.
Consider How Food and Beverages Might Be Impacting Sleep
What is your elderly family member eating and drinking throughout the day? If she’s getting a lot of sugar and caffeine all throughout the day, she’s likely compounding her sleep problem. Time of day matters, even when she’s eating healthy foods. Start looking more closely at dietary changes.
Create a Plan for Winding Down Before Bed
Having a bedtime routine isn’t just for kids. Adults need to be able to wind down for the night, too. For your senior this might mean reading a book or taking a soak in the tub. She might also enjoy listening to music or trying some meditations before going to bed. Whatever helps her to leave her day behind is helpful.
Talk to Her Doctor about Other Health Issues
It’s also possible that other health issues, and even the medications treating those health issues, is part of her sleep problem. It’s a good idea to bring your senior’s doctor into the equation to get a more thorough understanding of how her health might be impacting her sleep and vice versa.
Keep a Sleep Journal
A sleep journal sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. This is just a small notebook where your senior can keep track of how much sleep she got, how she felt when she woke up, and anything else that she feels pertains to her sleep. This can be a helpful tool in talks with her doctor, too.
Making changes to your senior’s routine can be helpful, and yet leave her feeling a little overwhelmed. Having home care providers available to help as needed and to remind her of her routine can be grounding for your senior.
Each hour, it’s estimated that around 90 people in the U.S. suffer a stroke. A stroke can be mild or severe. Either way, therapies are needed to restore abilities like speech, mobility, and eating. If your mom or dad had a stroke, you’re going to sit down and talk about home care services. There are five ways home care will help.