October 17, 2022
Blood pressure medication is there to help your senior, not create more problems, right? But all medication has side effects, and there are other factors involved. If your elderly family member’s blood pressure medication lowers her blood pressure levels too much, that can cause dizziness and other issues that can lead to a fall. It’s important to understand how her medications work, how they affect her, and what her fall risks are in the first place.
What Does Blood Pressure Medication Do?
There are a wide range of blood pressure medications. In general, they’re all designed to lower your elderly family member’s blood pressure. High blood pressure has serious health ramifications and needs to be addressed. Your senior might take different types of blood pressure medications. Each of them works slightly differently. Diuretics work by causing your elderly family member’s body to release fluid. Which in turn decreases blood volume and lowers blood pressure. Calcium channel blockers cause the small muscles around blood vessels in your senior’s body to relax. Thereby, allowing blood pressure to decrease. Still, other types of blood pressure medications work by slowing down the heart rate. Her doctor recommends the medication for a specific reason.
Understanding Your Senior’s Fall Risk
Something else that you need to understand is your elderly family member’s existing fall risk. This involves understanding the different factors that might work together to make a fall more likely for your senior. Talk with her doctor about her fall risk and how her blood pressure medications might contribute to a greater fall risk than is safe.
Reducing Fall Risk
Once you understand more about your senior’s blood pressure, her medications to control her blood pressure, and her fall risks, you can start to put a plan in place to keep her as safe as possible. Your senior’s doctor might recommend a plan of action. This plan might include exercise, dietary changes, and more. Implementing that plan as closely as possible can help your elderly family member stay safer.
Get Some Extra Help for Your Senior
Another good idea is to bring in some extra assistance for your elderly family member. This is especially important if her fall risks are ones that can’t be easily lowered. Home care providers can help with things like keeping her home tidy, so that she’s not as likely to trip, for instance. Home care providers may be a good option if your elderly family member seems to have more difficulty overnight. It can be tremendously helpful to know that home care providers are there at all times of the day and night so that your senior has help when she needs it the most.
Depending on the other factors affecting your senior’s health, she may have other options available to reduce her fall risk due to blood pressure and medication. Keep working with her doctor to ensure that the plan you’ve got is still working for her.
