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Maintaining personal hygiene can become challenging as you age, especially if you don’t have help from home health care services. Aside from declining physical health, memory disorders affect aging individuals and couples. Everyday tasks such as taking a bath, handwashing, or maintaining cleanliness become difficult.
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An older adult can risk suffering from immobility, isolation, and depression. This leaves them demoralized to take upon self-hygiene. The services of a caregiver can vary depending on the health status and responsiveness of the aged people. Sometimes, caregiver services may have to do everything for elderly hygiene, including washing and wiping body parts, toweling them dry, wearing fresh clothes, and essential grooming like beard shaving and nail trimming. Here are some helpful tips to encourage daily hygiene in aging adults in the best possible way.
- Personalize Elderly Hygiene Routine.
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Most aged people forget their daily hygiene habits. The lack of an adequate cleansing routine can make them feel dirty and stressed. This can stimulate agony and frustration in them and invite ignorance towards health, and breed ailments.
Having proper hygiene standards in place, like showering and brushing hair, will help aging people follow their grooming schedules. Play soft music to create a calming effect among seniors who feel nervous about taking a bath. Make sure that the bathroom space and bathwater are warm and there are handy towels and bathrobes at your disposal. Keep adult diaper samples in stock for the old individual’s benefit. Layout the fresh clothes in such a way so that the older adult can slip into a set of clothes with ease. A hand-written memo on the bedside with cleanliness and hygiene guidelines can also help the aged person.
- Ensure Bathroom Safety With Functional Accessories.
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Some amount of wetness can stay in a bathroom. As a result, aging people can trip into the bath space and injure themselves. Slippery tile floors, inadequate grab bars, low toilet seats can add to elderly discomfort, apart from provoking injury.
Install essential bathroom accessories like handrails near the toilet and in the shower. Get your bathroom technician to install raised toilet seats for the comfort of the aged members. Put non-slip mats at the bathroom entrance and outside a shower enclosure. Consider installing a walk-in tub for seniors who have difficulty standing for a long period under a shower. Make the cold and hot water switch buttons easy to reach and use. You may add a bench in the shower for your aging parents and grandparents’ bathing comfort.
- Buy Assistive Hygiene Aids.
The wellness market has several products to help address hygiene issues in the elderly. You can provide some of these devices to your loved ones to make their life a little easier. Consider getting invaluable hygiene aids like bathing wipes, shampoo caps, long-handle shower brushes, and easy-grip nail clippers.
Emphasize getting assistive devices like hair washing trays for the comfort of the elderly at home. It will make the caregiver’s task to complete the hygiene tasks of the ailing elderly in your family quicker and less time-consuming.
- Shop Adaptive Clothing.
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The motor skills associated with dressing can be challenging for seniors. Most of them have to struggle with narrow neck openings or difficult-to-button pants in dressing or undressing. As a result, the elderly may need the help of caregivers to wear fresh-looking and spotless clothes each day. There is always a chance of food stains dropping on elderly day and night clothing.
Select comfortable clothing with elastic closures. Think magnetic snap fasteners instead of conventional buttons, side open designs in pants to enable seniors to dress comfortably and with dignity and style. Help your aging family members change clothing when they get seated to avoid slips and falls. for which we also recommend the new bath seat for the elderly.
- Care For Their Fingernails.
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Nail hygiene often gets overlooked in personal hygiene. Fingernails are the breeding areas of skin infections. Long and untrimmed nails can put your aging family members to risk, particularly in seasonal changes and monsoon weather.
Trim the senior person’s fingernails every week or fortnight after the person has washed their hands or has had a shower. After-bath nail trimming softens the nails and makes the nails easier to trim. Since nails get more complicated with age, offer or apply moisturizer or hand lotion to their hands. Look for any signs of nail infection from a minor cut or injury. Lead the older adult to a salon for professional manicures and better nail health.
The Bottom Line
Do not overlook the importance of respect and dignity while helping seniors with their washing and bathing chores. Be mindful of assisting an aged person with dressing and undressing in personal hygiene. Remember, older adults can get self-conscious or oblivious when undressed. Handle the situation with tact to carry your caregiver responsibility with commitment and care. Keep your focus on maintaining a clean and respectable appearance of the seniors seeking hygiene help.