5 Tips to Make Diabetes Management Easier for Your Senior

Whether your elderly family member is dealing with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, it’s important that she knows what to do in order to stay as healthy as she can. That means that she needs to follow her doctor’s care plan and make sure she’s checking her blood sugar levels as recommended. There are some steps she can take that can help her to keep her blood sugar numbers where they’re supposed to be.

Talk with Her Doctor Regularly

Sometimes people with diabetes are reluctant to talk to their doctors because they don’t want to hear that they’re doing everything wrong. But it’s important for your senior and her doctor to work out a plan that keeps her glucose levels in the best range for her. Once your senior has a care plan for her diabetes, it’s important that she follows it closely. Home care assistance can make it easier for your senior to put together routines that keep her as healthy as possible.

Make Sure She’s Eating Well

Your senior’s first tool might need to be the foods that she’s eating on a regular basis. Her doctor may recommend that your senior change up her diet a bit, especially if her blood sugar levels are out of control more often than not. Adopting new eating habits is a lot easier if your senior has the support of home care assistance. They can help her to prepare healthy meals and remind her when it’s time to eat during the day.

Understand How Movement Affects Her Blood Sugar Levels

It might surprise your elderly family member to know that moving her body and adopting gentle exercise strategies can help her to keep her blood sugar under better control. The key is for her to find movement that she enjoys and that she’s willing to stick with. Consistency works better than haphazardly moving once in a while.

Phase Out Bad Habits as Much as Possible

Some of the habits that your aging family member might not have thought twice about before, like drinking alcoholic beverages, can have a big impact on her blood sugar levels. Alcohol in particular metabolizes into sugar, which can cause regulation difficulty. Again, home care assistance can be a crucial part of helping your aging family member to adopt better habits.

Pay Attention to Situations that Can Become Dangerous

One of the biggest concerns for people with diabetes can be things like slow-healing wounds, especially in the extremities. Too often these situations get overlooked and then turn into big health problems that can lead to amputations and other difficulties. With the help of home care assistance, your senior can better stay on top of the situations that are most likely to lead to these dangerous health issues.

Managing diabetes can feel like a balancing act for your senior. She’s going to have good days and bad days, so it’s important that she doesn’t beat herself up over the majority of the choices she’s making. What matters is that she has support to have more good days than bad ones.