Tag: 24-Hour Home Care in Eden Prairie MN

SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, can be very hard on seniors. Long dark days without a lot of sunlight in the winter can leave seniors vulnerable to developing Seasonal Affective Disorder. But 24-hour home care can help those who are struggling with SAD.

Because one of the contributing factors to developing SAD is the lack of sunlight seniors who feel anxious or vulnerable at night can benefits from having 24-hour home care. When they have 24-hour home care, seniors have company around the clock so they don’t feel alone, scared, or anxious when night falls the way they might feel if they were alone.

Some of the other benefits of 24-hour home care for seniors include:

Medical Monitoring

Seniors who use medical equipment often get anxious at night about their equipment working correctly and that can impact the quality and length of their sleep. With overnight care, seniors can sleep better knowing that someone will always be there to help them if they need it or if their equipment malfunctions. The security of knowing that someone is there in the middle of the night can dramatically improve senior’s mental health.

Helping Seniors Get Safely In And Out Of Bed

One of the most dangerous things that seniors can do is try to get out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or get a drink and get back in bed safely. Often when seniors fall at home it’s trying to get themselves out of bed in the middle of the night. With home care, your senior parent will have help all through the night to make sure that they can get to the bathroom safely even though they are half asleep.

Meals Anytime

Seniors may not always want to eat at usual times. That’s part of the reason why seniors often don’t get enough to eat. With 24-hour home care there will be someone with your senior loved one around the clock who make them a meal or a snack at any time of the day or night. Your senior parent will be able to get snacks or meals when they want to eat which will encourage them to eat more.

Company During Long Winter Nights

When the weather is bad and the sun goes down early the winter evenings can be very long for seniors who are alone. Those long winter evenings and nights can make seniors depressed or increase their anxiety. With the help of elder care around the clock, your senior loved one won’t be alone during those winter evenings. They will have a companion that they can watch TV with, play games with, eat meals with, and read books with. Those winter evenings could turn into fun evenings instead of sad evenings when your senior parent has someone there with them around the clock.

If you or an aging loved one is considering 24-hour home care in Eden Prairie, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.

Insomnia is believed to affect half of all older adults. In a study of 6,800 adults over 65, upwards of seven out of ten reported finding it hard to sleep all night. Upwards of three out of five found it hard to fall asleep. About one out of four said they didn’t feel refreshed even after sleeping.

It’s not surprising to learn that your parents have a hard time falling or staying asleep. Insomnia can be linked to their medications, chronic health conditions like arthritis that make sleeping painful and disruptive, or snoring. When you’re a family caregiver, your parents’ insomnia can impact your sleep quality. This is where 24-hour home care can step in to relieve your duties and help your parent all at the same time.

The Top Reasons for Poor Sleep in the Elderly

Medications are one of the leading reasons for poor sleep. If your mom or dad takes a prescription that causes drowsiness or nausea, it can impact their rest at night. The pills that they take cause them to feel tired during the day, so they nap too much. They’re no longer able to sleep through the night.

As you age, the ability to enter into a profound sleep changes. Your parents may wake up to outside noises more than they used to. If this is the situation they’re experiencing, white noise like a fan or white noise machine that produces the sound of rain or a bubbling stream may help them tune out traffic or people on the street.

Your parents may not be active during the day. If they’re sedentary, their body isn’t tired. That makes it harder to sleep at night. Make sure they’re active for at least 30 minutes or more each day. A brisk walk around the neighborhood is one way to ensure they get a half-hour of exercise.

Limit caffeinated snacks and beverages before bedtime. Your parents need to switch to decaffeinated tea and coffee by late afternoon. After dinner, they need to avoid excessive amounts of water, as their bladder will fill faster and cause them to need to get up and use the toilet.

The final thing to do to ensure your parents get the target seven or eight hours of sleep each night is to feed them dinner hours before bedtime. They need to avoid alcoholic beverages, too, as they impact sleep.

Going to bed on a full stomach increases the chance of acid reflux and heartburn. When they lay down, stomach acid production increases to help with digestion. The chest pain that results from heartburn can make it impossible to sleep.

Sleep Well With 24-Hour Home Care

Look at the benefits of 24-hour home care services. Instead of waking up to calls or knocks on your bedroom door or having to set the alarm to wake up, caregivers are there and ready to help your parents with their care needs.

You get to sleep through the night, and 24-hour home care aides are ready and waiting to assist your parents with everything from medication reminders to toileting assistance.

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991956/#

If you or an aging loved one is considering 24-hour home care in Eden Prairie, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.