Bad news about health issues can seriously affect your senior’s mental and emotional health. Negative feelings can compound the health issues she’s already dealing with, too, which just makes everything worse. Luckily, helping her to find solutions might be easier than you think.
Being Active in Her Own Care Is Huge.
If your senior is gathering information about her health and being active about her own care, that’s going to go a long way toward helping her with her feelings around her health. She may not be able to control her health, but being actively engaged can help her to feel less as if things are just happening to her. Your elderly family member will also learn more about what to expect down the road.
Keeping a Journal Helps.
Journaling gives your elderly family member a place to write out how she’s feeling. She’s also able to work through those feelings and how they impact the rest of her life. If your senior is new to journaling, she might start out slowly with it and feel as if it’s not getting her anywhere at first. As she continues, though, she’ll start to see the benefits.
Social Supports Are Crucial.
Friends, family, and even elderly care providers are all potential social supports for your aging family member. Leaning on other people for emotional and physical support reminds your senior that she has people who care for her and who want to help her. If your elderly family member is open to the idea of attending support group meetings, she can find other people who are dealing with similar health issues as she is.
She Might Benefit from Counseling.
Depending on the severity of the emotional impact your senior is experiencing, she might want to give counseling a try. Counselors can help her to find the tools that she needs to work through those feelings and find the positive aspects of what she’s facing. With more effective coping mechanisms, your senior may find that it’s easier to face the challenges her health brings.
Make sure that you’re also dealing with your own emotions around your senior’s care and health. If you’re not, it’s going to be more difficult for you to be there for her the way that you really want to be. You can both get through this together, but it’s going to take working as a team.
If you or an aging loved one needs elderly care in Fair Oaks, CA, remember Senior Home Care Services. Call us at (916) 514-7006 for more information.
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