Come let’s care for our diabetic elders! We know diabetes is a serious disease and it requires a life long care. As many older adults are now getting affected, diabetes management in the elderly is becoming a necessity. Diabetes is a silent disease because symptoms are not always visibly present. And considering diabetes in older adults, they often take symptoms as old age signals.
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Sad to relate, uncontrolled diabetes can give birth to severe life-longing complications such as stroke, heart attack, nerve damage, kidney failure, blindness, hearing impairment, skin infections, etc. But relieve is you can avoid these severe diabetes complications with proper diabetes management in the elderly.
Ways for Diabetes Management in the Elderly
There is no hard-and-fast rule about diabetes management in the elderly. With some simple tips show your love and care for your elders. Also, help them in improving the quality of life with diabetes.
1. Care Begins With Understanding:
Your journey of caregiving will be effective if you have the proper understanding. Understanding of your elder’s disease, its treatment, and management. This will guide you about the necessities required for the successful management of diabetes in the elderly. You can get a handful of information about diabetes from the diabetes section of our blog.
2. Bring Changes in Lifestyle Together:
Okay, taking baby steps in bring changes to lifestyle together for good, is the care that can motivate your elders. An encouragement to take action towards improving their health. Lifestyle changes such as exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet can help in diabetes management in the elderly. These changes will not only be beneficial for elders as well as to you too.
3. Be Serious About an Exercise Plan:
It is necessary to be serious and smart about exercising. Physical activities keep your blood glucose levels under control and can help in maintaining a healthy weight. If the blood sugar level is already low, it could become dangerous to exercise.
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4. Get on to Stress Relief Technique:
A bit of rising in the stress level adversely affects the blood sugar level. your support to your elders can make them practice stress-relieving techniques which include meditation, yoga, developing a hobby or getting a massage. In this way, you will help your elders as well as yourself in relieving stress.
5. Encourage for Self-Monitoring:
Sometimes it can be difficult for someone with type 2 diabetes to face diagnoses with a strength to fight it. Your support to them can be helpful to a very extent.
Encourage the elderly to start self-monitoring the accurate blood glucose level with the help of an at-home blood sugar monitor. And then take corrective action based on the result to improve diet, exercising, and stress control.
6.Medical Id:
At times, when you aren’t with your elders or loved ones and they face the situation of a diabetes emergency. Fainting due to low blood sugar or going into shock due to diabetic ketoacidosis can become scary. It would be better if the elder always carries some sort of medical id with them.
7. Take Care of Medication:
Well, that means proper management of diabetes requires taking medication on time. Keep your medicines updated, avoid taking too much and too little medicines. Get your doctor’s appointment as much as possible.
In the end- reach out to other caregivers who are also going through the same journey. Don’t feel shy as you are not the only one who is taking care or helping a family member to manage diabetes. And make “diabetes management in the elderly” a successful plan.
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