4 Ways to Help Your Aging Parents Live a Healthy Lifestyle
As the average lifespan of Americans is now 77.3 years, a growing number of adult children are finding it necessary to assist parents in their everyday lives. If you are helping aging parents, one of the things you probably notice is that they aren’t doing all that they can do to live a healthy lifestyle. This is where you probably want to step in, but what can you do to help them? Here are some of the things you might want to try.
1. Make Sure They Have Nutritious Food
Perhaps the first thing you notice when steeping into their home is that they don’t have enough food or enough of the right kinds of food. This is especially the case when there is only one parent in the home. Sometimes when a spouse goes before them, they simply aren’t all that concerned with mealtimes. As a result, they don’t shop as much as they used to and quite often aging adults really aren’t able to get out to the local market. No one can live a healthy lifestyle without giving the body the nutrients it needs to thrive, so this is important.
2. Evaluate Their Ability for Self-Care
Sometimes, as we age, we lose the agility of our younger days. One of the most common problems seniors have with self care is getting in and out of the tub. Other self-care tasks they may be unable to perform might be tying their shoes, remembering to take their medicine at the prescribed times and doing household chores that are beyond their physical ability anymore. Depending on their particular limitations, you might want to explore different living arrangements for them. If you live in South Carolina, for example, you could check into assisted living Myrtle Beach SC communities. Look for 24/7 services monitored by a care manager that will be tailored to your parent’s needs. An elderly parent can’t very well live a healthy lifestyle if they are continually falling or forgetting to eat healthy meals.
3. Help Them Stay Active
Consider for a moment living in Myrtle Beach like we mentioned above. This is an amazingly beautiful coastal city on the northeastern shore of South Carolina. As often as you have time, why not get them out to the beach for an afternoon stroll or a picnic on the beach? They may have difficulty walking in the sand, but you could find a grassy spot where it meets the shore. The point is to get them up and about, walking for the exercise they are lacking for a healthy lifestyle.
4. Give Them Something to Live For
Finally, there is one last thing that many adult children of aging parents really don’t understand. After living an entire adult lifetime caring for children and being a huge part of their lives, they somehow get lost in the shuffle. You don’t rely on them like you did in your younger years and now you have a busy life of your own. Sometimes seniors feel like they no longer have a purpose in life, so they more or less just give up. Whether you bring the grandkids over for your parents to read to, tell stories to, or simply just enjoy, there’s nothing like knowing you’re loved and needed to keep you going in those golden years.