Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a common ailment. Almost everyone knows someone who has high blood pressure, but it’s also a pretty scary diagnosis. If your aging family member is avoiding talking about high blood pressure, that might be because she knows how serious it can be. Here’s more that you and your senior both need to know about high blood pressure.
High Blood Pressure Can Lead to Big Health Issues
The main reason that high blood pressure is so scary for your senior is that it can lead to even bigger health issues. Your elderly family member may be at a much higher risk of developing heart failure, kidney disease, heart disease, or even of having a stroke. These are some scary health issues that can seriously impact her life.
Sometimes There Aren’t Symptoms of High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is often called a “silent” disease because there aren’t always symptoms associated with it. Your elderly family member might have headaches or feel off, but not be sure why. Unless she’s keeping tabs on her blood pressure levels, she might not realize that her blood pressure levels are getting too high.
Making Lifestyle Choices Sometimes Helps
Many people have success with making lifestyle choices before trying to do something like take medication for high blood pressure. Some of the changes your senior might need to make could include her diet, her exercise routine, and reducing stress in her life. Your senior’s doctor will let her know what changes she needs to make and how urgent those changes are. In-home care can help your aging family member to manage quite a few of those lifestyle changes much more easily.
Pre-hypertension Is a Wakeup Call
Your senior may be diagnosed with something called pre-hypertension instead of high blood pressure. What this means is that her blood pressure is higher than normal, but it isn’t in the ranges considered to be true hypertension. Pre-hypertension is a signal that your senior needs to start making changes now so that she can hopefully avoid experiencing high blood pressure. The sooner she makes those changes, the better.
Your Senior May Need More Help
It isn’t easy to make lifestyle changes, especially for seniors. Your elderly family member has habits and routines that she already enjoys and it can feel like a hassle to eat different foods or cook them in different ways. Home care providers can make that easier for your senior. With the help of in-home care providers, your elderly family member doesn’t have to do all of these things alone. She’s got someone right there with her who can keep her on target with her new routines so that they start to become habits that support better health for her.
The sooner your elderly family member addresses high blood pressure issues, the better. She can’t afford to ignore it when her blood pressure starts to creep up even a little bit. The healthier your elderly family member can get now, the easier the next few years can be for her.
If you or an aging loved-one is considering In-Home Care in Aventura, FL please contact the caring staff at Specialized Nursing Services today. (305) 652-2799