The Most Important Step to Recovering from a Heart Attack
Senior Care in Dallas – Rehabilitation is a Multi-Faceted Process and Your Loved One will need Support
A Heart attack is one of those health conditions that require extreme changes to your parent’s life pattern, especially if you don’t wish the recovery process to take a longer time than necessary. Some of the areas of your life that are sure to be impacted include the following:
- Eating patterns
- Exercise routine
- Intake of medications
- Regular visits to the doctor
- Self care
The major reason why it is important to undergo these changes is that to a large extent, it will greatly minimize chances of a re-occurrence, speed up recovery and return the senior to active participation in most previous daily activities. During this time, your elderly loved one needs your support and encouragement. If daily tasks start to become too much, you can bring in home care for the elderly to help.
Rehabilitation following a heart attack
In order to: minimize your parent’s risk of suffering complications as a result of a heart attack, significantly improve the daily functioning ability of the heart, lower the heart beat rate and most of all, reduce chances of death from the condition, there are several steps to take. The most important one among them is actively participating in a cardiac rehabilitation program. This type of program is usually structured into three major parts which are:
- Exercise
- Reduction of risk factors
- Combating certain after-effects like anxiety, stress and depression
In order to make the most of this program, it is recommended that you help your parent take part in the three structures of the program. This is mainly because it will maximize their chances of attaining better and quicker recovery, because they will have your full support.
In exercising after a heart attack, there is always the need to run an exercise test before you can fully participate in a given exercise program. This is done to determine how much time and energy that is safe for you to put into each exercise period to avoid any complications. With good collaboration between your parent’s physician and a trained clinician, a safe exercise program that suits their heart and physical capabilities can be developed. This includes the warm up phase, conditioning phase and lastly, the cool down phase.
The reduction of risk factors is also an important part of the rehabilitation program as it looks at those patterns, activities and consumables that could jeopardize their chances of recovering from a heart attack. Your elderly loved one will have to quit smoking, keep his or her blood pressure in check, keep their cholesterol level in check and if diabetic, learn how to effectively manage their condition.
Finally, after-effects like anxiety, stress and depression will need to be addressed with care and compassion. When a senior who was relatively active and healthy suddenly becomes bed-ridden or nearly immobile, the drastic change can be devastating and the effects long-lasting. Helping your senior loved one accomplish the first 2 steps of rehabilitation will naturally help with the third. The more strength they can gain back, and the better sense of normalcy they can achieve, will help their mental state tremendously.
If helping your loved one recover from a heart attack has become an overwhelming task, consider hiring senior care from Approved Home Care. Our experienced caregivers can help with both your senior’s recovery process as well as by giving you a chance to take a break. A little down time is good for everyone when trying to recover from such a dramatic life event.
