At some point in your life, you will experience anxiety, and that is even true for seniors. You may think they’re old enough to never suffer anymore or experience anxiety, but that is simply not true. Many seniors experience anxiety during the aging process, especially if they live at home and choose to age in place. Your senior may not want to bother you because you are technically their adult child, but they may also need more help than you know. If your senior has been struggling with anxiety, they may need help from in-home care providers.
So, what are some of the best ways to lessen seniors’ anxiety? Here are a few things your family can try this year.
Hire In-Home Care
Sometimes, living alone can be anxiety-inducing. You may stop over once or twice a week to help your senior mom or dad with things around the house, but they may need more help than that. In-home care professionals can help them run their house daily, get dressed, take care of personal hygiene, and focus on making food regularly. Just the extra help from senior home care may lessen their anxiety and worry about aging in place. On top of everything, you can easily communicate with in-home care to understand where your focus should be when it comes to your senior mom or dad. They may see things you do not know about, which can help you and your mom or dad’s relationship.
Look for Anxiety
When you don’t know what anxiety looks like, it can be hard to determine if your loved one is struggling with it. Here are a few things you or senior home care can look for when you’re worried about anxiety. There are different types, and each has different characteristics or symptoms.
Panic Attacks– One of the main things to look for is panic attacks, which usually have symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain, and dizziness.
OCD– This stands for Obsessive-compulsive disorder, which means your senior has unwanted obsessive thoughts and routines or rituals that they must do to go on with their day.
PTSD– Traumatic events can cause post-traumatic stress disorder, and even later, after the event, it can replay in a senior’s head. This may cause panic, irritability, depression, or being super distracted.
Generalized Anxiety– Worrying about everything every single day for more than six months may be generalized anxiety. This can cause sadness, irritability, depression, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.
Keep in mind that there are many different symptoms of anxiety. They may also experience certain phobias that scare them, which is another form of anxiety that a doctor may need to help with. In-home care can help look for specific things that may mean your senior loved one is suffering from anxiety attacks. However, they will still need to see their doctors to get the right help.
Provide Support
Your loved one needs to go to the doctor, and once that happens, the best thing you can do is love and support them. They will need someone to comfort them after a panic attack happens or someone to reassure them that things are okay and in order during an anxiety attack. This is something that in-home care can help with since they will be with your senior throughout the week.
If you or a loved one are considering In-Home Care Services in Allegheny County PA, please call and talk to the caring staff at Extended Family Care of Pittsburgh at (412) 693-6009. We will answer all of your questions.
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