Making Your Parent's Home a Healing Place for After Heart Surgery
Elder Care in Hudsonville MI
Heart surgery is a major procedure, but one that can truly make an impact on your parent’s life, health, and wellbeing. Helping your parent make the most of their heart surgery begins with preparing them for the procedure and then continues with supporting healthy, effective recovery. Making efforts to create a healing place for your parent for after surgery will set them up for the best recovery success and aid you in giving them the care that they need throughout this recovery period.
Remember that most patients will spend between 5 and 10 days in the hospital following heart surgery. Your parent may need to spend more depending on their surgery and their health. Regardless of how long they spend in the hospital, having the home prepared for them when they get home will make the transition from hospital care to care in their own home smoother and less stressful.
Use these tips to make your parent’s home a healing place for after their heart surgery:
- Consider moving them downstairs. Your parent will experience fatigue after their surgery and will tire extremely easily. Having to go up and down stairs frequently can place a tremendous strain on their body. Consider moving them downstairs and creating their healing space in the most central area of the home so that they can more easily access everything that they might need.
- Promote comfort. During the recovery period your parent’s body is healing. This includes getting accustomed to the changes within the heart caused by the procedure itself, as well as healing the incision, replenishing blood, and working hard to fight off infection and other potential issues. Keeping them as comfortable as possible will help them to rest and sleep, which supports better healing.
- Make bathing easier. Staying clean is not only important to helping prevent infection and illness, but it is also a central element of maintaining good mental and emotional health during recovery. Caring for incisions, however, can make bathing more difficult. Talk to your parent’s doctor about bathing practices and consider adding aids such as a shower bench and handheld showerhead to your parent’s home to make this process easier.
- Prepare meals in advance. While your parent should be getting up and moving about the house every day and taking on as many of their own tasks as possible as soon after their procedure as they can, they will still tire very easily. Give them the opportunity to channel their energy toward other tasks by eliminating the need for them to cook whole meals. Instead, prepare and freeze meals in the time leading up to the surgery. They can then reheat these meals for faster, healthier, and less strenuous nutrition.
One of the best choices that you can make to help your parent recover after heart surgery is to start elder care for them. An elderly home care services provider can be with your parent to provide a personalized level of care and assistance tailored to their needs and challenges. This care will help your parent get the rest that they need to allow their body to heal while also promoting a healthier lifestyle including complying with diet, exercise, and medication guidelines and instructions given by the doctor after the surgery. Having this care provider in the home can also give you peace of mind knowing that if your parent should encounter any complications or issues such as infection, the care provider can detect it and let you know so that you can ensure your parent gets the additional care and support that they need.
If you or someone you know needs help with elder care in Hudsonville MI, contact Gauthier Family Home Care. We provide quality and affordable home care services in our community. Call us at (616) 258-2300 for more information.
Source: http://columbiasurgery.org/heart/recovering-home-faqs
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