Heart Failure: How Can You Help a Senior with Heart Failure?
Heart failure can be a scary diagnosis, but it doesn’t mean that your senior’s life is completely over right now.
There are a lot of different ways that you can help your elderly family member with congestive heart failure to make lifestyle changes that help her to feel better, manage side effects and symptoms, and have the help that she needs when she needs it the most.
Prioritize the Lifestyle Changes Recommended by Her Doctor
Your senior’s doctor is likely to have a long list ready for her of lifestyle changes that she needs to start making. If she tries to tackle the whole list all at once, she’s going to get overwhelmed and probably won’t make the changes. Work together with her to look at things like her diet, whether she’s exercising, and whether she needs to do things like quit smoking. Pick one or two to focus on and make changes as she’s able to do so.
Keep Track of Medication Side Effects
Her doctor is also likely to prescribe medications to help your senior’s heart failure. All medications have side effects, so it’s important to know which are the most dangerous that you need to watch for with your elderly family member. It’s also a good idea to keep track of any of the side effects that she experiences so that it’s easier to share that information with your senior’s doctor.
Make Sure to Log Symptoms, Too
Something else that you and your senior should track are the symptoms that she experiences. She may have swelling in her legs and feet or shortness of breath. Keep a log of when these symptoms are worst and whether anything improves them. This is information that her doctor can use to help treat her condition of heart failure.
Heart Failure: Learn When it’s Time for More Help
Your senior doesn’t have to do everything on her own. In fact, it’s a good idea that she does have some extra help so that she can focus on her health and doing all she can to manage her heart failure. Home care providers can take over routine daily tasks for her and they can also help with things like cooking nutritious meals that fit her dietary needs and offering companionship.
Your senior may live for quite a long time with heart failure. The key is to help her to maintain her quality of life for as long as possible.