What Makes Nutrition More Difficult for Your Senior?
One of the battles your senior might be facing at this stage of her life is making sure that she’s getting the nutritional intake that she needs in order to be as healthy as possible.
Medication
Companion Care at Home Reston, VA: Seniors and Nutrition
Some of the medications that your elderly family member takes can make it a lot tougher for her to eat or can cause side effects related to nutrient absorption. Medications can even affect how food tastes, which can take a lot of the fun out of eating for your senior. Talk with her doctor about the side effects she’s experiencing.
Changes in Lifestyle
If anything has changed in your senior’s life, like living on her own for the first time in many years or experiencing mobility issues, that can affect whether she’s eating or not. Eating alone is something that a lot of people avoid doing, for instance, and that might mean for your senior that it’s more difficult for her to get the nutrients that she needs. Companion care at home can help with that.
Health Changes
As your senior’s health changes, her dietary needs might change and it may be more complicated for her to get the nutrients that she needs. Those changes to her health conditions can also make cooking and other tasks related to food preparation a lot more difficult. This can be another area where home care providers are tremendously helpful.
Sensory Changes
Many seniors find that their senses of smell and taste change as they grow older, which can mean that foods that used to be appealing now aren’t. And if those foods were the healthy versions, your senior might be missing nutrients if she opts for versions that now taste better to her but are not as nutrient-rich.
Lack of Appetite
If your senior is a lot less active than she used to be, she may also be battling her appetite. A complete lack of appetite might mean that your senior goes hours before she even thinks about eating. This might be something that companion care at home could help your senior to manage. Periodic reminders to eat can keep nutrients in her body, even when she’s not feeling the prompt of hunger pangs to remind her.
Figuring out what’s keeping your senior from getting the nutrients that she needs is absolutely vital if you’re going to help her to correct the situation. There’s a delicate balance between finding foods she’ll eat and making sure that she’s getting as much nutrition as possible.