Tips: How to Prevent Skin Irritation in Seniors

Healthier skin becomes an even more important aspect of senior care. As the years go by, the skin condition of our aging loved ones can become more fragile. This means that they can get easily irritated, injured, or infected. Minor irritations can complicate into infected wounds when not taken care of properly. Furthermore, when our aging loved ones are mostly lying on the bed or seated on a wheelchair, they can also acquire pressure ulcers when their skin is very sensitive to pressure. Hence, they will need assistance in proactively caring for their skin to prevent health-related complications.

As a trusted provider of healthcare services in Virginia, we would like to make the following recommendations in caring for senior skin. We hope that with these tips, you can be empowered to provide more quality care to your senior loved one.

• Get Help on Incontinence Issues
  Seniors are also prone to having incontinence troubles, which can easily trigger skin breakdown. If your senior loved one who is bed- or wheelchair-bound has incontinence issues, ensure that a skilled nurse specializing in incontinence care is supervising them. Nurses can be present 24/7 so that their skin is better cared for, thus preventing future incidents of bed sores, or, preventing the complications of present sores.
• Lubricate Senior Skin
  Dryness is common in our elderly loved one’s skin. However, this same dryness can easily result in breakouts on the skin surface, which can lead to irritation and wounds. To address this, always apply skin-friendly lotion or moisturizer on our aging loved one’s skin. Some nursing assistants can help you in monitoring your loved one skin.
• Avoid Scrubbing the Skin
  When you are bathing or washing your loved one, keep in mind not to scrub their skin. As mentioned earlier, their skin status is already fragile. Even minor activities such as scrubbing can lead to irritation or scratches, which can easily escalate as infected wounds when left unattended. Instead of scrubbing, pat their skin surface with a soft towel.
• Monitor for Skin Breakouts
  Some occurrences of skin irritation are not easily observed by the naked eye, especially when our senior loved ones are no longer able to talk and complain about it. We need to be proactive in checking on their body parts every day to look for signs of skin breakage. When we maintain being proactive, we can help treat skin irritations the earlier they occur.
• Serve Skin-healthy Food
  It can also be a great help when our aging loved ones are being well-fed with nutritional foods. This nutrition supplements the health needs of seniors in maintaining healthy and glowing skin. To better assist you in healthy meal preparations, our home care service provider in Fairfax, Virginia can help you out.

Caring for a senior person’s skin is made more manageable when you have help from skilled professionals. Let our home care service providers in Fairfax, Virginia at Gateway Healthcare Services LLC be of assistance. Reach us for your inquiries.