Aging isn’t always a smooth sail for everyone. Your elderly family member might find that she’s feeling more and more anxious as new health challenges appear or as she starts to experience other life changes.
Try to Understand the Roots of the Fear
There’s almost always a reason your aging family member is afraid of growing older. It’s important to get to the roots of those fears so that you can do something to acknowledge them and then to help find solutions. Your elderly family member might not fully understand herself what’s behind some of her concerns. Helping her to dig a little deeper can enlighten both of you and that’s important.
Help Her to See the Bright Side
Finding the bright side can sound a bit like Pollyanna, but it doesn’t have to be. What you’re really doing is simply looking for ways to hang onto the silver lining and avoid sliding deep into negative thoughts and feelings. The negativity isn’t going to help your senior and may make some of her fears even more difficult to deal with on a regular basis.
Get Creative about Answers
Once you’ve got an idea why aging is getting scarier for your senior, you can start to put solutions in place for her. She may need more help maintaining her house and managing repairs, especially if one of her concerns is no longer having her home as a safe haven for her. Or she might need help with specific tasks, like getting dressed. There are emotional and physical issues at play there. One of the solutions you might want to consider sooner rather than later is bringing senior care providers in. They can ease her worry and her workload now and as she needs more help, they’re already there to give her that hand.
Figure out Some Supportive Routines
Having the right routines in place can help to alleviate a lot of your senior’s negative feelings around growing older. They can also relieve a great deal of anxiety. If she knows that she’s going to be supported in the areas that are becoming more difficult for her, that’s going to go a long way toward ensuring that she’s able to process those emotions more readily.
Your elderly family member can’t stop the clock on aging entirely and that might be part of what causes her to feel negatively around topics related to growing older. Understanding what creates the biggest issues goes a long way toward finding solutions that truly help.
If you or an aging loved one is considering senior care in Sedalia, CO, please contact the caring staff at SYNERGY HomeCare today at 303-953-9924.
