Low vision is a common element of aging, but when it starts to interfere with function and daily activities it can have a serious impact on your parent. Living with low vision, whether it is due to age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, trauma, or another factor, can diminish quality of life by impacting your parent’s perception of themselves, frustrating them, and taking away their ability to participate in activities that they enjoy. As both their family caregiver and their adult child, encouraging your parent to maintain a high quality of life when living with low vision is an important part of supporting their overall health and well-being throughout their later years. This can help them to continue to enjoy a lifestyle that is active, independent, and fulfilling even as they cope with this change in their function.
Use these tips to help you encourage your parent to maintain a high quality of life when living with low vision:
- Remind them that they are more than their vision. Encourage them to focus on other aspects of their life where they still feel capable and independent.
- Plan quality time with them including activities that you both enjoy and that they can participate in effectively and successfully even with their low vision.
- Work together to find ways to adapt their favorite activities so that they can still enjoy them. For example, a senior who loves to read may enjoy large print versions of books or listening to audio books, while using larger canvases and palettes with textured places for each color of paint can encourage an artistic senior to continue creating.
- Work together to find ways to adapt activities of daily living so that your parent can continue to manage as much on their own as they can. For example, transfer detergent and softener into bottles of very different colors so that they do not get confused and replace the measuring cap with a cup that is the exact right size so that your parent does not have to try to see the small fill line.
- Consider increasing senior care so that your parent can stay more active and engaged in the world around them even when they are no longer able to drive.
Starting senior care for your aging parent can be one of the best decisions that you make for them during the course of your caregiver journey. A senior home care services provider can be with your aging loved one on a customized schedule that is not only right for their needs and challenges, but also for the care efforts that you are able to give them. This means that you can feel confident that both when you are able to be with your parent and when you are not, they are getting everything that they need to manage their challenges and limitations in the way that is right for them. This keeps you at the forefront of their care while also encouraging them to live the safest, healthiest, most fulfilling quality of life possible as they age in place.
If you or an aging loved one needs senior care in Sacramento, CA, remember Senior Home Care Services. Call us at (916) 514-7006 for more information.
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