May 20, 2020
You may have heard that older adults are more susceptible to the coronavirus, but why is that? Part of the issue involves your senior’s immune system and the ways that it changes as your aging family member grows older. Understanding the reasons can help you to take the right action to keep your senior safe and healthy.
Health issues take a lot out of your senior. Even if she’s had high blood pressure for a long time, her body still sees that as a problem it’s managing the best it can. The longer she’s dealing with those underlying health issues, the more they take out of her. If she’s developing more health issues or they’re becoming worse, that’s exponentially more trying on your senior’s immune system.
As your senior ages, her body just heals a little slower. Healing is a complex process and your senior’s bodily systems don’t all work the same now as they did in the past. Your senior’s body isn’t producing the same number of immune cells, and those cells take longer to kick in and get to work. Because healing happens at the cell level, everything is moving a lot slower than it did when your senior was younger.
That’s all part of your senior’s immune system slowing down in general. Your senior’s immune system might react to threats much more slowly than it did in the past, which means that germs that would normally have been recognized and dispatched immediately before now have a chance to replicate. This can lead to her getting sick with colds and minor ailments much more often.
It’s more important than ever before that your senior is being as proactive about her health as she can be. This means getting the right amount of exercise according to her doctor, eating nutritious foods, and getting plenty of sleep. Her doctor may also recommend getting different vaccines throughout the year to help bolster her immune system.
During the coronavirus pandemic, it’s more important than ever to protect your senior and her immune system. Home care providers are an excellent choice if your elderly family member needs a little extra help right now, too. They can practice social distancing and ensure that your senior has what she needs without exposing her to germs she doesn’t need.
