Seniors are very susceptible to heatstroke. With summers getting hotter every year, you need to be able to protect them from the heat. While many seniors are good at maintaining their temperature, some can be pretty stubborn. Others overestimate their capacity to handle the heat. You’ll need to protect them from themselves. Here’s a quick guide on some measures that you can take to ensure that they stay cool in the summer.
Know More About Their Health Condition
When it comes to seniors, it is always better to know when what their condition is and how vulnerable they are to heatstroke. Seniors already have problems adapting to the heat thanks to their age. But there are additional factors that can make them more susceptible to heatstroke. It is not only heatstroke that they have to worry about. Heat stress and other conditions can cause damage to their system that will be difficult to recover from.
First, some medical conditions make it difficult to adapt to the heat. Heart and lung conditions are the main ones. Additionally, those who are overweight and sedentary can be susceptible to it. Besides that, certain medications make seniors vulnerable to heatstroke. This includes those that narrow your blood vessels and regulate your blood pressure by blocking adrenaline. These are usually for those with higher blood pressure. Diuretics, which help with various liver and kidney diseases, dehydrate the body, making it vulnerable. Finally, antidepressants or antipsychotics can increase the risk of heatstroke.
Better Monitoring
Knowing whether your loved one is at high risk of being a victim of heatstroke should help you decide on how you can monitor them. If you live with them, then it should be pretty simple. But if you don’t plan more frequent visits or calls to them. When you do drop by, check on how they are taking care of themselves. Have them wear the appropriate clothes for the weather, which means light and airy clothes so that they can sweat freely.
The best thing to do is to remind them to hydrate themselves. One of the main causes of heat stroke is the body not being able to cope with the heat. Being dehydrated is a big reason for that. Drinking plain water or even fruit juices is essential to keep the heat down. Unless they have a condition that prohibits it, you should encourage this. Additionally, they should not be drinking caffeinated or alcoholic beverages since these contribute to dehydration.
Besides that, you should check on their body heat. If they are still too hot, have them take a shower or a sponge bath to help cool down. If possible, you should help them with that. You can also take them to a colder location, whether it is a senior center or your own home.
Air Conditioning Is Important
Keeping cool is very important, and you can help your parent do this by ensuring they have proper cooling in their home. Your best option is air conditioning. If they don’t have air conditioning in their house, then insist on installing one. If they have an old model, consider replacing it with a more efficient and powerful model. With the increasing heat of summers, it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to having air conditioning. If the model they have in their home is good enough, then you should call in an AC technician to tune it up before summer begins so that they get the best performance. Remind them to call you when it breaks down so that you can contact AC repair services quickly to fix it.
Make Some Housing Upgrades
Besides the air conditioning, there are some things you can do to lower the temperature of your parent’s home. One good method is to do some insulating. This has a double purpose. The insulation keeps out the heat during summer while keeping it in during winter. This makes it an efficient upgrade that is worth the investment. You can also add some tinting on the windows so that less direct sunlight comes into a home to heat it. Combined with solar curtains, this can drop temperatures greatly.
The heat is only climbing as our climate changes. Protecting your loved ones from heatstroke is going to be a full-time job in the years to come. Knowing how you can probably do it and making the right changes to their home and lifestyle can be a big help in keeping them safe from the heat.
