Elder Care Tips: Washing Your Senior’s Hair

Elder Care in Weston, MA – Try these Helpful Tips for Caring for Your Senior’s Hair

Keeping your elderly parents healthy and comfortable is one of the most important goals of your elder care plan. Fresh, clean hair is an important part of your parents’ hygiene and health, but washing their hair can become a challenge, particularly if they are coping with cognitive or memory challenges that make them resistant to this task or even bathing in general.

Taking care of your parents’ hair may be a challenge but ensuring it stays clean is an important part of keeping them feeling good, looking good, and resisting illness. Being prepared with tactics and techniques to simplify the process or make it something more appealing to your seniors helps you keep your elder care plan moving forward with less stress.

Try these tips for keeping your seniors’ hair fresh and clean:

• Limit washings. You may think that hair needs washing every day, but the fact is most people only really need to wash their hair once or twice a week. In fact, it is likely that your mother only washed her hair once a week when she was a young adult, when that was the common way to care for hair. If your elderly parents are nervous about hair washing, cut down on the frequency of washings and focus instead on washing their face every day
• Use alternatives to traditional washing. Achieve cleanliness and a fresh smell without having to use water and shampoo with alternatives. Dry shampoo powders and foam let you coat your senior’s hair in the cleansing product and brush it out. This absorbs oil and odors and loosens dead skin so you can sweep these out of the hair. While you still need to do a traditional shampoo every two weeks, using an alternative product every other day or so keeps your senior cleaner
• Make it a treat. You know how special it is to feel pampered, so make hair washing a chance to give your parents this same special feeling. Instead of just making washing their hair about getting their hair clean, make it about indulging them. Plan a trip to the barber or beauty salon and let your senior parents enjoy the pampering of getting their hair washed, dried, and even styled. If your elderly parents cannot get out of the home to go to the salon or barber, find a professional who can visit them
• Finda caregiver. Many seniors may show resistance to cooperate with their adult children when it comes to things like bathing, hair washing, and grooming, but are much more willing to cooperate with a professional caregiver. Having a caregiver handle this type of task removes much of the emotional complication for seniors and gives them a sense of professionalism that makes them more likely to comply
• Keep it separate from bathing. Taking a bath is often stressful for seniors so avoid making it even more difficult by removing hair washing from the equation. While giving your elderly parents a bath or shower focus on cleaning their bodies and leave their hair alone. On a different day use a bedside sink or a shampoo cap to wash their hair while they remain fully dressed for a more comfortable experience.