As seniors age, their eyesight tends to get weaker and the eyes have a harder time focusing, seeing colors, and adjusting to light. However, there are several easy things you can do to promote your senior loved one’s eye health. Check out these tips that can help maintain senior eye health, presented by a leading provider of senior home care in Mississauga.
1. Focus on Nutrition
Maintaining a healthy diet is the first step seniors can take to help maintain good eye health. Alcohol and foods that are high in saturated fats can harm senior eyes, leading to a risk for cataracts and damage of the cornea. Fish and green leafy vegetables, which are high in vitamins and antioxidants, can help seniors prevent age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Help your elderly loved one promote his or her eye health by serving baked fish alongside a spinach salad.
2. Avoid Smoking
While you already know that smoking is not a healthy habit, you might not realize that smoking is also bad for the eyes. Studies show that smokers are more than four times more likely to go blind in old age than nonsmokers and that second hand smoke can more than double an individual’s chance of developing AMD. So whether your loved one is a smoker or spends time around them, encouraging your loved one to take cigarette smoke out of the equation can significantly decrease his or her risk for eye damage.
3. Exercise
Though it might seem strange at first to encourage seniors to exercise to promote eye health, cardio exercise can actually improve vision. Heart-pounding exercise gets the blood flowing, which in turns leads to more oxygen going to the eyes and helps get rid of bodily toxins. By exercising, your loved one is getting healthy oxygenated blood to the eyes, and flushing other toxins out. If your loved one has mobility challenges that make cardio exercises difficult, you might also consider hiring a part-time caregiver in Mississauga to safely assist your loved one with an exercise routine.
4. Protecting Your Eyes While On the Computer
If your loved one is tech savvy, he or she might spend several hours at a time on the computer. While being connected can yield cognitive benefits for your loved one, being on the computer for a long time can hurt his or her vision. To help protect your loved one’s eyes from bright computer screens, make sure he or she keeps the screen slightly below eye level and at least 20 inches from his or her eyes. You may also encourage your loved one to take twenty-second breaks every twenty minutes to his or her eyes a rest.
While senior health advice tends to focus on brain and heart health, it’s also important to keep senior vision in mind. If your loved one experiences impaired vision, he or she may also benefit from the assistance of a professional caregiver to complete everyday tasks, like navigating the home or reading medication bottles. In addition to hourly care, the expertly trained caregivers at Home Care Assistance can also provide assistance for a range of senior needs, including Alzheimer’s, dementia, and stroke recovery care in Mississauga. To learn more about our care services, reach out to a knowledgeable Care Manager at (905) 337-1200 and schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.