Covid care for elderly in winter
Corona Virus and care Homes in winter:
The novel coronavirus continued through care facilities for the elderly in spring. It continued into summer months, leaving hundreds of thousands of elderly people dead around the world.
Now, winter heads towards the Northern Hemisphere all are preparing for a cold-weather surge in coronavirus cases to avert the next chapter in the disaster.
If you are like most people, you feel cold every now and then during the winter. What you may not know is getting really more cold can make you very sick.
Older adults can lose their body heat fast—faster than when they were young. Changes in your body that comes with aging can still worsen of getting cold. You may not know what is happening but a big chill can turn into a dangerous problem for elder people during this covid. Doctors call this serious problem as hypothermia.
For an older person, a body temperature of 95°F or lower can cause many health problems, such as a kidney problems, heart attack, liver damage, or even more worse in winter.
Try to stay away from cold places, and pay attention to how cold it is where you are. You can take steps to lower your chances of getting corona.
Keep Warm Inside
Living in a cold house, apartment, or other building can spread the causes of corona. In fact, it can happen to someone in a nursing home or group facility to get corona more easily if the rooms are not kept warm enough. If someone you know is in a group facility or senior care centres’, pay attention to the inside temperature and take care to check whether that person is dressed warmly enough.
COVID-19 and the Elderly: Who Cares?
People who are old and sick may have special problems keeping warm and elderly people needs more care in this winter. Do not let it get too cold inside and dress warmly.
Bundle Up on Windy, Cold Days
A heavy wind can quickly lower your body temperature. So keep checking and updating about the weather forecast for windy and cold days. On those days, try to stay inside or in a warm place as one needs special covid care in winters. Avoid going out and wear warm clothes, and don’t stay out in the cold and wind for a long time as COVID-19 is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation.
Here are some other tips for covid care for elderly in winters:
- Dress for the weather if you have to go out on chilly, cold, or damp days.
- Wear loose layers of clothing. The air between the layers helps to keep you warm thereby protecting you.
- Put on a hat and scarf. You lose a lot of body heat when your head and neck are left uncovered.
- Wear a waterproof coat or jacket if it’s snowy during covid in this winter.
- Change your clothes right away if they get damp or wet during this corona pandemic.
Covid19, Illness, Medicines, and Cold Weather
Help with household tasks
Getting older can make it harder to tackle even simplest jobs around the house, thereby elderly people needs special care in winter during covid.
Older people often really depend on any sort of help with basic chores such as taking out the rubbish, changing light bulbs, fastening sash windows, clearing snow off the path, putting up pictures, and so on.
Share a meal
Older, isolated elderly people often need a hand cooking for themselves, so why not take round an extra plate of hot home-cooked food, or a frozen portion they can heat up quickly or microwave?
Here are some quick and easy recipes for delicious winter-warming meals.
Few volunteers connects elderly people who like to cook and are happy to share an extra portion of a delicious home-cooked meal with older neighbours living close to them by who could really benefit from a hot, cooked meal in this covid 19 pandemic.
Watch out for signs of winter illness
Older people are particularly vulnerable during the covid crisis in winter as cold weather increases their risk of illnesses, such as colds, coughs, strokes, drowsiness, slurred speech, flu, heart attacks, breathing problems and hypothermia (a dangerous fall in body temperature).
Keep older people warm and well!