Aging comes with numerous physical changes, as well as mental and emotional challenges. Ensuring your healthcare keeps up with these changes and challenges is vital to remaining healthy. For this reason, geriatric care is important. Just as pediatrics concentrates on kids and teenagers’ unique health and medical concerns, geriatric care addresses the unique needs and changes that arise as you age. Partnering with a geriatric Chamblee specialist implies you can feel confident your care will be optimized to your evolving requirements. Here are the 6 main benefits of considering geriatric care.
- Comprehensive Health Assessment
Geriatric care starts with a thorough health assessment of the elderly patient. The assessment entails a check of the patient’s current health status, health history, and any drugs they are using. The geriatric specialist will also assess the patient’s physical, emotional, and cognitive health to spot age-related conditions requiring professional care. Moreover, this comprehensive assessment allows your practitioner to spot health concerns early, and in their most treatable phases, which avoids further complications.
- Chronic Disease Management
Many elderly persons have one or more chronic conditions like heart disease, arthritis, and diabetes. Geriatric care assists patients in managing these concerns by offering regular checkups, monitoring symptoms, and adjusting care plans as necessary. Your geriatric specialist can also fine-tune disease management with lifestyle changes, medication, and other procedures to manage symptoms and reduce the risk of severe complications.
- Medication Management
As you age, you become susceptible to numerous conditions. As such, it is common for elderly persons to take several medications to manage their health concerns. Unfortunately, managing their medications could be difficult for elderly persons because of physical limitations or memory loss.
Geriatric care offers medication management to ensure that elderly persons use the correct medications, in the appropriate dosage, and at the right time. With this care, patients can avoid adverse reactions and possible medication errors.
- Palliative Care
Palliative care is an approach that enhances the life quality of patients who are struggling with life-threatening conditions. Geriatric care specialists provide palliative care to elderly persons with chronic conditions like cancer, kidney failure, chronic liver disease, and more. This care alleviates suffering through early identification, proper assessment, and management of pain, and other physical or emotional concerns.
- Enhanced Mental Wellbeing
Aging could result in mental health concerns like anxiety and depression as one tries to cope with the physical changes. Luckily, geriatric care specialists are skilled at identifying these concerns and suggesting the correct therapy. Besides, these providers offer support and counseling services to assist individuals in coping with these age-related changes, and maintaining their independence, which could result in improved mental well-being.
- Fall Prevention
Falls are a prevalent reason for injury and hospitalizations in elderly persons. Geriatric care specialists can evaluate the patient’s home environment for safety hazards and suggest changes to avoid falls. Furthermore, these providers offer exercise and balance training programs to enhance the patient’s mobility and limit the likelihood of falls.
With age comes vulnerability, both mental and physical. Elderly persons in the family require constant attention and care to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. If left unattended, most aging persons become trapped in the overwhelming feeling of misery and sometimes worthlessness. Visiting a geriatric specialist often as you age is one of the best gifts you could give to yourself and your dear ones. Your provider will work with you to understand your unique health concerns and develop a care plan that best addresses these issues.
