The older you get, the tougher it becomes to recover from injuries, surgery, or even major medical emergencies. For someone in their 20s or 30s, fracturing a foot can be debilitating for 6-8 weeks, but for somebody in their 80s, that recovery process could be months. Plus, for a senior, getting back to 100 percent may not be practical in some situations.

The challenges for people as they get older are numerous. For one thing, when it comes to broken bones and other physical injuries, the body simply doesn’t heal as quickly as it had in the past. For another thing, it takes longer for an aging person to strengthen and build up muscle or tone muscle. That simply makes the recovery process more difficult, challenging, and lengthier the older an individual is. It can also cause safety to be more concerning during the recovery process.

There are a number of reasons why safety needs to be a top priority for seniors after a hospital stay. Here are three ways they may struggle to recover and how in-home care can help.

First, seniors won’t be able to do everything they did before.

The longer a person spends in the hospital, the more muscle, stamina, and strength they will lose. For seniors, that will accelerate faster the older they are and the longer they stay in the hospital.

When they are discharged and sent home, they may need the assistance of other people to help them maintain balance, use a walker or cane to get around for a while, and that is going to increase potential hazards of just getting around.

Second, it will likely take considerably longer for them to get back to full strength.

There may be times when an aging person feels 10 or 15 years younger, but that isn’t going to do anything to improve safety when they’re recovering from pneumonia, a heart attack, or stroke, for example.

Sure, they can feel younger, but their body will tell them otherwise. If they are not willing to listen to what their body says or heed its warnings and limitations, that increase their risk of complications or other injuries.

Third, their balance and agility will be impacted.

When you don’t use certain muscles in your body for a while, they don’t act the same way you expect. For somebody laying up in a hospital bed for a week or more, their legs might get weaker. That means their balance and agility, which may include their ability to remain balanced when they start to lose it, will decline.

The best way to improve recovery and reduce the risk for readmission is to turn to in-home care.

An experienced in-home care aide can improve safety for aging seniors going through recovery. They have done it for other seniors and have experience, know what to look for, common risk factors, and how to offer the kind of encouragement that leads people to keep pushing through, even when it gets to be most difficult.

Reference
https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/home-self-care

If you or an aging loved one is considering in-home care in St. Paul, MN and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.