Taking Care Of The 600Lb Homebound Patient: What In-Home Health Care Can Do
If you have been the primary caretaker of a friend or family member for someone who is over five or six hundred pounds, you may be wondering if you should continue this labor of love. There are many scenarios and situations where it may not always be appropriate for you to provide care to this individual, and/or medical situations for which you do not have the skills to provide care. It may be time to consider in-home health care for this six-hundred pound homebound patient, and here is what in-home care can do that you probably cannot.
Bathing
Bathing needs for the morbidly obese patient include getting into the folds of their loose skin and making sure every crevice, fold and flap of flesh is adequately washed, dried and monitored for health problems. Skin and flesh that is not properly bathed can begin to tear and to fester with bacteria, despite your best efforts to help this person. An in-home care aide or nurse knows what to look for and how to prevent these issues, as well as how often these patients should bathe (which is typically more often than the average-sized person because of the amount of trapped sweat and skin cells in the flesh folds).
Diet and Nutrition
When a morbidly obese patient wants to lose some weight because he or she realizes the multiple health risks associated with his or her size, he/she needs diet and nutrition changes. In home health care businesses are able to provide a dietary aide that would create a meal plan using only healthy food choices and would prepare these meals for the person in question. If the person would also like to learn more about what is healthy and what is not (some people are not aware of healthy guidelines and are surprised to learn that there is a ton of fat, sugar and calories in most of what they consume!) then the aide would be able to share that information with the patient or client and his/her family.
Physical Therapy and Exercise
Many patients who are over five and six hundred pounds have trapped fluid in their legs, body and limbs. They may not be able to move because of this trapped fluid and all of the extra weight they are carrying. In-home health care can send in nurses and physical therapists who are trained to provide range-of-motion exercises to increase the person's ability to move. In turn, this would help other visiting nurses and aides encourage the person to exercise a little bit each day, which would help with all kinds of physical ailments and complaints.
Speak with a service like Neighbors Home Care Services for more information.
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