Technical Care Activities for Elderly People
- Carers should understand clinical care activities to assist the elderly.elderly lady image by pixelcarpenter from Fotolia.com
As humans get older, bodies start breaking down. There are times when elderly people need some extra care, and it's important to have trained workers (carers) know the proper way to provide this care. Learning technical care activities for elderly people helps you provide for their unique needs in a professional manner so you can assist the elderly in achieving optimal health and living standards. - With diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and high blood pressure, older people tend to experience more instances of long-term illness than younger people do. Because of this, they also take different combinations of medications to treat their different ailments. These medications can have negative, and often dangerous, results when mixed together by someone who has no experience in medication administration. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there are approximately 50 adverse drug events each year per 1,000 elderly people, with at least 13 of those reactions potentially preventable. A carer trained in medication administration can help elderly people balance their medications for optimal health results.
- Elderly people sometimes have to deal with wounds and ulcers on their skin, especially if they have conditions such as diabetes. A carer should have training in the procedures associated with wound care and the proper way to dress a wound or ulcer to prevent infections that could cause more damage, or even death.
- Another important technical care activity for elderly people is learning about venipuncture. This is when you puncture a vein through an elderly person's skin, so that you can withdraw blood for testing and analysis, or so that you can begin an intravenous drip or inject medication.
- Elderly people with diabetes sometimes have to have regular dialysis treatments. An important technical care activity for elderly people is dialysis monitoring. When a patient is going through dialysis treatment, a carer must also monitor the elderly patient's blood glucose levels.
- Pain management technology is an extremely important area of technical care for elderly people. As bones become brittle and illnesses creep through the body, pain management techniques are essential. A carer can learn pain management exercises and become knowledgeable about pain management devices to help elderly patients deal with sciatica, back pain, acute pain that accompanies postoperative procedures, arthritis, and muscle atrophy among other problems common to the elderly population.
