Senior Health: As a senior gets older, they naturally lose bone density.
This means if your parent or loved one falls, they could break bones easier. Bone health is something that seniors should be concerned about, but many people don’t know what they can do to keep their bones healthy. In-home care can help seniors stay healthy by caring for them after falls and preventing seniors from falling. They can rearrange, organize, and maintain the house for a senior while encouraging them to make healthy life decisions for good senior health.
Home Care in Westfield NJ: Bones
In-home care specialists can drive seniors to their doctors and encourage them to get a bone density test.
This test is typically done for seniors with osteopenia and osteoporosis, but it can be done for others too. This will show what the future fracture risk is and how low the density has gone. From this information, an in-home care provider can help the senior stick to a routine that will improve bone health. It can become a part of their care plan.
Certain medications a senior takes may also impact bone density. It is important for a senior to openly talk with a doctor about the serious side effects. If a caregiver starts noticing that a senior becomes smaller and smaller, or fractures happen more easily, it is time to go back to the doctors. The doctor may prescribe new medication and have recommendations for how to improve bone health in a senior.
Tips to Improve Bone Density
Seniors should always strive to live a healthy lifestyle, but this can be harder for some people to achieve. That is why having an in-home care specialist can help so much. They can keep a senior on track, help them live better, safer, and ensure they are following a care plan. Here are some tips to keep bone density high and improve it.
Eat Calcium-Rich Foods
Eating enough calcium is one of the main ways to improve bone density. Anyone over the age of 50 should be eating around 1,200 mg of calcium each day. An in-home care provider can help manage and track the amount for an older senior.
Check Vitamin D Levels
If a doctor checks the vitamin D levels and is low, it may be time to consider vitamin D supplements. A caregiver will not be able to touch any medication. Still, they will be able to help a senior remember to take the daily supplements every day.
Physical Exercise
Many people believe that exercise is counterproductive and may even hurt the senior more. However, regularly exercising will help create strong and healthy bones. When exercising, the bone adapts to the exercise by building it up with more bone. This is crucial for seniors, and caregivers can help encourage activities that get the seniors up and moving.
Less Alcohol
Heavy alcohol consumption has been linked to lower bone density. For some people, quitting drinking can be hard to do. However, it is important to encourage healthy habits and keep reminding seniors that excessive alcohol is not good for the aging body or good senior health.
If you or an aging loved one are considering hiring Home Care in Westfield, NJ, call the caring staff at Helping Hands Home Care today at 908-418-4299.
Providing Home Care Services in all of Northern and Central NJ, including Clark, Westfield, Cranford, Scotch Plains, Rahway, Linden, Summit, Edison, Elizabeth, Mountainside, and the surrounding areas.
Sources:
https://americanbonehealth.org/seniors/
https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/
After graduating from Seton Hall University with a BS in finance Helping Hands Homecare’s Owner / President, Robert D’Arienzo, went to work on Wall St. for six years. However, after Robert’s grandmother became ill with stomach cancer Robert and his family needed to find assistance in the home for her. After many trials and tribulations Robert could see that there was a great need for quality home care services here in NJ and loved the idea of being able to assist other families who were going through what his family went through with his beloved grandmother.
Thus, Robert had found his passion. After almost a year of preparation Robert opened Helping Hands Homecare in 2003. Robert wanted Helping Hands Homecare to focus on providing the highest quality of caregivers, exceptional customer service, and providing a service that familys could depend on in their time of need. Since then Helping Hands has assisted hundreds of individuals with the simplest of needs to more complex cases while preserving those standards set out many years ago.
Robert is a Google Verified Author
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