Wellness For Unpaid Carers, Their Carees And Everyone Really!
Whoever you are and whatever age you are, you have to look after your health. People who receive care are usually better looked after than those that give care. The truth is that if the carer gets ill, which is easily done when they get little rest, then the caree(s) is(are) in a predicament…
General Health
The medical profession are here to help, the usual etiquette applies: seek help from a pharmacist first for minor ailments and escalate as necessary. If it’s hard to tell what is ailing the care receiver, then it’s better to ask the GP/nurse practitioner to see them.
Are you a bit unsure about the medical decisions, care and/or anxious about the appointments themselves? Do you have a strategy to cope with appointments? If you’re anything like me, you might sometimes find appointments a bit overwhelming, despite being well-practiced because of poor health.
Click Here For Eight Top Tips For Successful Hospital Appointments & Interactions!
- Read the appointment letter carefully, rearrange it if it coincides with another appointment that takes priority. Don’t just miss it without informing them.
- If your appointment has special preparation, like fasting or drinking a certain amount of water within a specified time frame, plan the steps out inline with the instructions in the letter when you receive it.
- Plan your journey, make additional allowances for traffic/parking space searching and set off in plenty of time. Maybe check online for delays before you leave. If you think you are going to be late, give them a ring (if you’re not driving) to let them know when you think you might arrive.
- Take notes so you remember any advice given.
- Take a friend or relative along for support and think of/ask more questions. If you are having an examination and would like a chaperone, you have the right to ask for and be provided with one.
- You can email or write to the medical professional concerned with any questions that have occurred to you after your appointment. You can ask for the reply to be written in simple terms too. I know I get overwhelmed with medical jargon and acronyms.
- If you aren’t happy with the medical decisions you have the right to a second opinion and/or make a complaint. You should not receive any worse care for doing so.
- Should you need to complain, you can find some contact details in the resources section.
We’re a few years on from the pandemic, but covid continues to fluctuate, I’m still masking in public buildings despite the funny looks. I’d prefer not to bring covid home given we were considered CEV.
I don’t want to bring home flu, measles or other nasties either. If you are trying to protect yourself and/or your loved ones too, you are within your rights to ask for medical professionals, carers or anyone in close contact with you to wear a face mask if that is what you’d like them to do.
Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and confused about covid boosters and think you should be offered one but you haven’t been? Click here for a template letter.
The Green Book is a public document, ask your pharmacist or similar for the link and look at the table of medical conditions that make people clinically extremely vulnerable to covid. Compile a list (that took us ages!) and send it to your GP with a note along the lines of:
Your Address
Date
Dear
I have looked at The Green Book as I was told that I am Clinically Extremely Vulnerable previously but have not been offered a covid booster. I have the following conditions which are listed in the book as high risk: [List them]
Please review my case/offer me a jab on a patient specific basis.
Many Thanks & Best Wishes
Name
Date of Birth
If you have more than one CEV person in you household, it might be more effective to include them on the same note rather than on separate ones.
I wish you luck with this, for some reason nurses aren’t getting offered these vaccinations now and a lot of the walk-in vaccination centres have been closed. We are continuing to be polite nuisances. Something that costs pennies that can save lives (and the NHS money in the long run) should really be given everyone who was told to shield as well as those who have developed or discovered said conditions. The fact that dementia was never on the list is alarming.
Private jabs are now starting to become available, should your request not be met.
Sustenance
Remember to try and eat a rainbow of colours – I don’t mean Skittles! – in order to be as healthy as possible. Nothing new here, doctors and nutritionists have been telling us about this for years.
Water is essential for all life but what’s so great about it?!
Well (no pun intended) I’ve noticed a difference in my relatives which has a direct correlation with the amount of water they drank at the time. Water makes blood more mobile – it’s essential to be properly hydrated for blood tests so the blood is more willing to enter the vial. The more mobile the blood, the quicker oxygen reaches your brain. More oxygen reaching your brain, the better for everyone, but in particular for dementia patients. It helps power the brain and helps with cognition, speech, you name it. Keeping well hydrated also helps prevent UTIs or Urinary Tract Infections. UTIs can be really quite debilitating in older adults, causing delirium which can last longer than the infection itself. Again, terrible for dementia patients.
Two sneaky ways to get people to up their fluid intake:
I love drinking water, but I understand that a lot of people don’t. If squash is getting the thumbs down or you’d prefer a healthier alternative then try keeping a jug of water in the fridge with quartered oranges, lemons and/or limes in it. Or anything else that will gently flavour it over time. I’d avoid grapefruit as it can interfere with medication.
Do be careful when serving, you don’t want anyone choking on the fruit. You can imagine you’re having Pimms!
Still not on to a winner? Then why not try handing out ice lollies, water melons or anything else with a high water content. A bit sneaky but I think we can be forgiven. The ends definitely justify the means when it comes to preventing illness and therefore hospital admissions, especially in heatwaves – you can’t be too careful.
Insights Into Eating & Dementia: Five useful things I’ve recently found out about dementia and food:
- Sometimes people with dementia like to put their hands in their food – this is a sensory experience for them.
- Sometimes people with dementia lose concentration when they’re eating – they haven’t necessarily finished and are still hungry, gentle prompting or physically helping them is good. Watch out for non-verbal communications from them.
- Sadly, having swallowing dysphasia is a progression of the disease, sometimes silent aspiration occurs, when food and drink enters the lungs. This can lead to pneumonia which can have catastrophic effects. Dementia patients are entitled to feeding tubes – medical professionals may not deem them appropriate, and might suggest “feeding at risk”. People are often put on special diets in this case – thickened fluids and pureed or minced food for instance. It can be very frightening for carers and I urge you to discuss your fears with a member of the Speech And Language Team (SALT) who assessed your loved one. Swallowing can improve, especially when the care receiver is walking.
- You can get ready meals prepared especially for those on textured diets, they are quite expensive. The portions are usually very small, so be mindful about the person you’re caring for losing weight. They will lose muscle too, so give them high calorie treats like seedless smoothies too.
- Home-cooked meals appropriately with the aid of special kitchen equipment like a pureeing machine; this is a bit more anxiety inducing to begin with and requires attention to detail but it’s nice to all eat the same thing. You also know that they are getting more nutritious food in a decent sized portion.
I’ll be developing this page further in the future by looking at what foods are good for what conditions and how some other conditions affect eating.
Clare