Most families tend to catch up around the holidays; however, once the holidays come to an end, seniors can end up feeling lonely. You should try your best to stay in contact with your senior loved ones year-round. In fact, your aging loved one can experience mental, physical, and social benefits if you decide to keep in touch. Visiting Angels White Plains discusses the benefits that seniors can experience in more detail.
Does your senior loved one have a difficult time speaking or communicating? If so, you can look into ways to communicate with your aging loved one more effectively. Visiting Angels Knoxville breaks down a couple of ways you can try communicating with your loved one.
Sometimes touch can make a difference. Visiting Angels Knoxville recommends touching your loved one while you are talking with them. You can gently place your hand on their hand, slowly brush their hair, or give them a gentle pat on the shoulder. Always let your loved one know that you are going to touch them, and always be on the lookout for any signs of discomfort. If your loved one is not comfortable with your touch, stop.
Aging comes with a lot of mental and physical changes. Many seniors tend to struggle with communication as the years pass. Are you struggling to communicate with an aging loved one? Visiting Angels South Elgin offers some great advice that can help you.
If your loved one has recently started to develop speech issues, Visiting Angels South Elgin explains why you should continue to talk with your loved one as you would before the issues began to develop. You could feel a bit frustrated, here and there, because it can feel like you are talking at your senior loved one, but your loved one will appreciate your effort. By talking with your aging loved one, you are showing them that you still want to keep them involved in the conversation.
As children are growing up, they find themselves in a variety of social situations. As time goes on, and people become older, those social situations become more limited. Visiting Angels Hurst encourages seniors to continue to socialize with others and build relationships because of the benefits seniors can experience.
Visiting Angels Hurst is well aware of the dangers that COVID-19 poses to seniors. Thus, if you feel uncomfortable with your loved one heading out to make some new friends, you can enlist the help of Visiting Angels instead. How can Visiting Angels help your loved one? Well, a professional caregiver can provide your aging loved one with great companionship. Plus, a caregiver can provide your loved one with the support they might need in their day-to-day life.
If you would like your loved one to build more connections, with someone other than their caregiver, you could also rely on Visiting Angels Hurst’s social care services. Social care is meant to teach seniors how to use technology. In the comfort of home, and with the help of a caregiver, seniors can learn how to video chat, send messages, send emails, and more.
When it comes to hearing loss, many seniors are affected. There are previous hearing strategies, that seniors cannot rely on anymore because of the ongoing pandemic. While some strategies do not work anymore, Visiting Angels Chelmsford shares some strategies that seniors can still rely on.
When it comes to COVID-19, masks and social distancing are important. It can be a little challenging to hear a person through their masks sometimes because masks muffle voices. However, there are ways to communicate clearly while wearing a mask. Visiting Angels Chelmsford recommends a couple of suggestions, like speaking slightly louder and slower. As long as people take a couple more seconds to get their thoughts across to others, conversations can still go on.
At the moment, if people are meeting face to face, they should wear masks and practice social distancing. Many people have been struggling with the changes, including seniors. Visiting Angels Southlake brings up 6 ways that seniors can socialize.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of ways to socialize during the pandemic? Phone calls? Visiting Angels Southlake thought the same thing. You can continue to communicate with your loved one by calling them or by video chatting. It can be easier to call your loved one because your senior loved one might not know how to video chat. If you would like to video chat with your loved one, you can teach them, or you can rely on Visiting Angels Southlake’s social care program.
Communication is often overlooked by many people. You hear someone else speak and then you say something back. If that is how you think communication works, how would you communicate with someone who cannot reply? Visiting Angels Northern Middle-Neck Peninsula brings up ways that you can communicate with a senior who cannot speak.
Before giving advice on how to communicate with a senior who cannot speak, Visiting Angels NNMP breaks down how a conversation works. Overall, there are three steps that your brain goes through when you talk to someone else.
For one, you need to hear the other person, remember what they said, and form an understanding of the words that they said. After that, you need to think of a reply and form a sentence of words in your head. Lastly, you need to move your muscles in order to speak.
Those who suffer with hearing problems often rely on their eyes to help them understand what others are trying to say. The problem is, masks are covering people’s lips and making it difficult for those with hearing problems to understand others. Visiting Angels Daphne offers some strategies to help seniors with hearing problems.
Masks can make it difficult to understand what others are saying because masks muffle people’s voices. The solution does not have anything to do with taking the mask off. Masks are important and essential because they help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Visiting Angels Daphne offers a list of suggestions that can help those with hearing problems. Some examples from the list will be included below.
Conversations require effort from both parties. Even if one is cognitively well, it can be difficult to follow some conversations. Visiting Angels Lewisburg mentions some helpful tips for talking with seniors who have dementia.
Before getting into seniors with dementia, Visiting Angels Lewisburg takes time to explain how conversations work. In other words, there are four parts to a conversation that Visiting Angels Lewisburg breaks down. The first foundation of communication is articulation. What is articulation? It is the way people say words. Those with good articulation pronounce their words clearly or clear enough so other people understand. There is also cognition. When it comes to conversations, one has to process what the other person is saying to formulate a response, and that is cognition.
Seniors with dementia often have a difficult time when it comes to these conversation foundations. In particular, because those with dementia have a challenging time remembering things, they struggle with the cognition part of a conversation. Thus, when talking with a senior who has dementia, you should be patient and understanding. Give them extra time to process what you are saying and to give you a thought-out response.
Senior Health & Wellness 