Lifestyle Risk Factors for Heart Disease that Your Senior Can Manage

Your elderly family member can’t do much about hereditary risk factors for heart disease, but she can manage some of the risk factors that are choices. Some of these risk factors are easier to adjust than others, so she might need your help and your support.

What and When She Eats

If your elderly family member is eating haphazardly and choosing foods that aren’t properly fueling her when she does eat, that’s not going to help her or her heart. It’s a much better idea for her to be eating whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins rather than processed foods. If she’s having a difficult time eating full servings, then eating smaller meals more frequently can help her to get the fuel that she needs.

Elderly Care Spring Hill TN – Lifestyle Risk Factors for Heart Disease that Your Senior Can Manage

Vices Such as Smoking

Your senior might have quite a few habits that she enjoys but that aren’t all that healthy for her. Drinking more alcoholic beverages than one or two per day can be associated with additional health problems. One of the biggest vices that can affect your senior’s heart, though, is probably smoking. The ingredients in cigarettes and cigarette smoke as well as the impact of smoking on your senior’s body can lead to a greater risk of heart disease.

Being Sedentary

The less active your senior is the greater her risk of all sorts of health issues becomes. Talk to your senior’s doctor about how much exercise is right for her and how she can easily get started. Moving just a little bit more can help so much. A regular exercise program just increases the benefits that she experiences.

How She Deals with Stress

Everybody processes stress a little bit differently and your senior might not have some of the best habits in place. Stress can do things like make your elderly family member’s blood pressure rise, which puts physical strain on her cardiovascular system. Your senior’s dependence on vices like smoking might increase with stress, and that can be a problem. Help your aging adult learn how to manage stress in ways that don’t put her body and specifically her heart through too much strain.

It’s difficult to make some of these changes on her own, so it can help to have elderly care providers available. Elderly care providers can help her to establish routines that make sure she hits her goals. They can also make some of these tasks, like eating healthier meals, much easier to do on a regular basis.