Health Promotion For Elderly: Leading Seniors To Longer Life

The increase in the population of the elderly around the globe is increasing rapidly every year. In fact, it is projected that there will be 426 million senior citizens all over the world by the year 2050. This is at least 17 percent of the world’s entire population. Because of this, the World Health Organization is encouraging nations to include health promotion for elderly people in their priorities. If you are a senior and concerned about your looks you can get a cosmetic surgery procedure in addition to your physical and mental health programs.

Strategic Health Promotion for Elderly

The idea is to encourage the elderly to lead a healthy lifestyle. Its main goal is to allow them to live a healthy and long life as much as possible. Furthermore, promoting healthy aging in seniors will also help in reducing health care system problems. It will be easier for healthcare providers and facilities to sustain their services as well. Thus, resulting in a much more reliable and dependable health care system for everyone.

Exercising and Physical Activity

Old age does not necessarily mean that you are too weak to move and be active. As a matter of fact, this is the time for seniors to be more physically active. Any kind of physical activity can have beneficial effects on elderly people. It reduces their risk of getting diseases such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, hypertension, and many more.

Seniors are most likely aware of the advantages of regular physical activity and exercise. However, due to mental health decline, they lack the motivation to put things into action. Sometimes, all they need are words of encouragement or a simple tap on the shoulder to let them know that they can do it.

Encouraging the Elderly to Exercise:

Here are some of the ways for you to promote exercise to the elderly for healthy aging:

• If it’s convenient, talk them down and explain to them the benefits they will get in exercising. Be particular in mentioning muscle strength, balance, endurance, and flexibility.
• Hear them out and list down their goals. Let them know if their health desires are realistic and make kind suggestions on making them attainable.
• Make a solid workout plan for them and be specific in mentioning the intensity, time, and frequency of each exercise.
• Join them if possible. You may also opt to encourage them to enroll in preventive services where older adults like them exercise as a group.

Good Nutrition and Healthy Diet

Healthy meals have a vital role in stabilizing elderly people’s health. Poor eating practices often result in a reduced sense of taste and smell. Developing diseases is also a huge possibility. And let us not forget the unpleasant effects on dental health as well. Due to this, good nutrition and a healthy diet must be strictly promoted to the elderly.

A healthy diet will help in keeping them safe from chronic diseases. It also promotes high levels of energy which allows them to stay physically active. Lastly, good nutrition and a healthy diet maintain their weight to nutritional standards.

Motivating the elderly to stick to a healthy diet

You may opt to try these techniques for the promotion of good nutrition in seniors:

• Stress the importance of good nutrition in their wellness and overall health.
• If necessary, expound on the benefits they can get from liquid supplements. Nevertheless, do not forget to mention the advantages of solid foods.
• Recommend trusted and effective multivitamins that can deliver all the essential nutrients they need for each day.
• Refer them to the preventive services program that provides helpful information about nutrition, healthy diet, and food preparation.

Cutting off Unhealthy Habits

The elderly must break off excessive alcohol consumption and chain-smoke as much as possible. Why? Because these habits are not good for the health, not only for the elderly but also for younger adults. Smoking increases the risk of many diseases such as stroke, heart attacks, and different types of cancer. A lot of smoke-related conditions could cause hard to manage symptoms that last for years.

Quit-smoking tips

Quitting smoking is hard. But hopefully, these techniques could help you encourage the elderly to do so:

• Give motivation. Remind them of the reasons why they are quitting in the first place.
• Ask the family to be supportive, especially during the withdrawal phase.
• Opt for nicotine replacements.
• Please encourage them to join support groups.
• If possible, take them to a wellness spa to help them relax.
• Avoid all the things that relate to smoking.
• Remove the smoke-related things in the house, such as ashtray.
• They might relapse but keep pushing them until they succeed.

Plenty of Rest

Research shows that the immune system and cardiovascular health are the most affected when someone is sleep-deprived. It is also the most common cause of fatigue in the elderly, which affects their physical activities. Seniors tend to have a hard time sleeping as they age. Their sleep becomes lighter, and they could easily get woken up by the slightest sounds.

Complete sleep promotion

Ideally, seniors need seven to eight hours of sleep to restore energy. Here are some ways for them to sleep like a baby every night:

• avoid being exposed to blue light at night
• stay away from caffeine from 3 PM onwards
• reduce nap times
• sleep and wake up on schedule
• do not drink alcohol
• make your bedroom cozy
• do not eat heavy meals after six in the evening
• stay calm and relaxed
• lie in bed an hour before your bedtime
• take a relaxing bath

Avoiding Stress

It’s normal for the elderly to stress themselves out even with the simplest things. This is because of their life experiences and the things they learned over the years in their life. But in line with health promotion, Seniors should avoid stressors as much as possible. While being stressed is utterly normal from time to time, frequent exposure to stressful events and emotions could cause physical health problems.

Reducing stress in older adults

• regular exercise
• light a scented candle
• reduce caffeine intake
• spend quality time with loved ones
• find a new hobby
• take yoga or meditation classes
• listen to soothing music

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References:

How to Promote Physical Health While Aging: The Healthy Aging Checklist Part 2 -Leslie Kernisan (https://betterhealthwhileaging.net/how-to-promote-physical-health-for-healthy-aging/)

Promoting Wellness in Older Patients (https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/promoting-wellness-older-patients) May 17, 2017