What are the daily care for the elderly?

As someone who has been doing community home care for the elderly for 6 years, I can clearly say that there is no unified standard answer for the daily care of the elderly. The core is to focus on the three core directions of physiological care, risk avoidance, and psychological support, and to adapt to the physical condition and living habits of the elderly. There is no need to follow the standardized online process.

Many family members who are new to care always ask for a "care list" and are eager to do it every minute, which can lead to problems. The family members of Uncle Zhang, a 78-year-old patient with sequelae of cerebral infarction that I treated before, initially copied the online guide and forced him to turn over every two hours and forcefully walk 1,000 steps a day for recovery. As a result, within a week, Uncle Zhang started clamoring to go back to his old house, saying that he felt like he was "in jail." Later, we followed Uncle Zhang's schedule changes and incorporated rehabilitation exercises into his habit of getting up early in the morning and watering the plants in the afternoon. We also reminded him to move when he changed channels to watch dramas after sitting for a long time. He actually cooperated very well. In the past three months, the strength of his left limbs has increased a lot.

When it comes to this, we have to mention the issue of "should strict dietary restrictions for the elderly" which is currently very controversial. On one hand, the medical community emphasizes that the elderly with underlying diseases must strictly control sugar and salt and stabilize their targets. On the other hand, many family members feel that the elderly have worked hard all their lives and it is too unfair to be unable to even eat their favorite foods in old age. We usually take a middle-of-the-road approach in practice. Grandma Li, a patient with type 2 diabetes who we took care of before, had to eat three kinds of honey for her whole life. Her family members refused to touch it at first. However, she secretly hid a drawer in the bedside table and ate a whole piece without anyone noticing. Her blood sugar spiked to over 12 on several occasions. Later, we discussed with her family members that every morning when she came back from a walk downstairs, we would give her a piece of honey three times as big as a fingernail to satisfy her cravings. After eating, we would check her blood sugar once more. As long as the index was stable, we would give her half a piece more every week. After that, she never secretly hid sugar again, and her blood sugar was stable at around 8, and her overall complexion improved a lot.

There are also many people who think that nursing is just about food, drink, and medical care. In fact, what is most easily missed is the "sense of value" of the elderly. There used to be an 82-year-old Aunt Wang. After she fell once, her family wouldn't let her touch anything, and they even had to help her get dressed. As a result, she stayed in her room every day without talking, and even stopped going to her favorite senior choir. Later, we persuaded her family to leave a thin cardigan for her to wear every time she changed clothes. When eating, let her help pass the dishes and chopsticks and set up the stool. Within half a month, she took the initiative to learn to use a smartphone. She was obviously different from the old sisters in the choir before.

If you meet an elderly person who is bedridden, don’t stick to the standard of turning over in 2 hours. If you wear thick clothes in winter and the elderly person is fat, you need to shorten the distance appropriately. Put a soft silicone pad on the bony protrusions such as the sacrum and heel in advance. It will be more effective than applying any expensive anti-pressure sore cream. If the pressure is red, do not rub it. Many family members think that just rubbing it away will only make the damaged subcutaneous tissue more serious. In fact, after all, there is no fixed list for daily care. It is all temperament developed after spending time with the elderly. If you treat him as an elder with his own preferences, it is not a task that needs to be completed. Most problems can find appropriate solutions.