Strokes occur when blood flow in the brain is interrupted. Some strokes are milder than others, but a massive stroke can be fatal. It’s important that your senior understands her stroke risk and takes the steps that she can take in order to lower her stroke risk. As her caregiver, you can help her with this.
Get Other Health Issues Under Control
Your senior’s health is all interconnected. If she’s got high blood pressure issues, diabetes, or out of control cholesterol levels, those all impact her entire body. They also increase her risk of having a stroke. It’s vital to work to get those health issues under better control, so talk to your senior’s doctor about the best ways to do that. Her doctor may have some more targeted advice about other stroke risks that she has, as well.
Rethink Some Vices
Your senior may have been a smoker for decades with no ill effects that she’s aware of but doesn’t mean that she won’t have a stroke that’s exacerbated by smoking. Drinking a little too much alcohol can also cause problems in terms of stroke risk. These habits can be tough to break, especially if your senior doesn’t feel there’s any harm in them and she’s been doing the same thing for years. Talk to your senior’s doctor and encourage her to follow her doctor’s advice.
Add Exercise to Her Daily Routine
Assuming that her doctor recommends that your senior start to exercise, it can really help her stroke risks to come down. Making physical activity a part of every day keeps her heart and her lungs working and enables her to lose far less muscle tone. She doesn’t need to do complicated exercises, either. What’s most important is that she enjoys what she’s doing and that she’s only pushing herself so hard during each workout.
A Caregiver Can Look More Closely at Her Diet
Just as with every other health issue, stroke risks are impacted by what your senior eats. If she’s eating foods that are full of empty calories, her body isn’t getting what it needs in order to keep her healthy. Swapping out just a few unhealthy choices for fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins can help quite a bit.
Sticking with new habits isn’t easy, even if there’s a really important reason to have the new habits. For your senior, it can help to have a caregiver there to make some of those habits easier to stick to in the long run.
If you or a loved one are in need of Caregiver Services in Macungie PA or the surrounding areas, contact the caring professionals at Extended Family Care of Allentown. Call today at (610) 200-6097.
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