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Caregiver Tools: Could a Humidifier Help Your Parents Stay Healthier and More Comfortable?

Senior Care in Wrightsville Beach, NC

One of your main goals as a family caregiver for your aging loved ones should be making sure that your seniors are as healthy, comfortable, and safe as possible, and that means making adjustments to your care plan throughout the year to adjust for changes in weather, humidity, and other environmental factors that could have an impact on their health. This fall and winter, one of those changes you may want to make is integrating the use of a humidifier.

Humidifiers do exactly what their name states: they add humidity to the air in the home. This means that they put more moisture into the air, helping to combat dry indoor air. This can offer a variety of health and wellness benefits, including soothing dry skin, easing chapped and cracked lips, preventing nose bleeds, comforting sinus problems, and making the temperature inside the home feel more comfortable without having to put an excess strain on your climate control system. Using humidifiers properly, however, is essential to not only ensuring the most benefit from these devices, but also preventing potential issues related to improper use.

Use these tips to help you safely and effectively integrate a humidifier into your caregiver plan for your elderly loved ones:

  • Select the right humidifier. A humidifier is not a one size fits all solution. There are several different types of humidifiers and it is important to use the correct one in order to ensure the most benefit for your parents. Central humidifiers are actually added into the central climate control system of the home to provide humidification for the entire space. These are generally expensive and require use throughout the entire home rather than in just the spaces where your parents need the extra moisture.
  • Regulate the moisture. Invest in a hygrometer to measure the level of moisture in your parents’ air. This will help you to determine how much humidification they need in order to get the air healthy and comfortable without creating a muggy, damp, and potentially harmful environment within the home. This is one area in which a central humidifier can be extremely beneficial, automatically measuring the humidity and maintaining it at the appropriate level without your intervention.
  • Keep it clean. Humidifiers hold water in reservoirs to turn into steam or mist to add moisture to the air. If not kept clean with fresh water on a regular basis, it could turn into a breeding ground for mold, mildew, and bacteria that is simply processed right into the air where it becomes part of the air you, your aging loved ones, their non-medical in-home caregiver, and anyone else who may visit the home breathes. These particles also settle onto all of the surfaces of the home, giving the perfect environment for germs to flourish, which is especially troublesome during the cold and flu season of fall and winter.
  • Try fragrance. For extra benefits, particularly when using a humidifier in the bedroom when your parents are sleeping, add a few drops of essential oils into the reservoir. This will scent the steam or mist so that your parents can enjoy aromatherapy benefits in addition to healthier, more comfortable air.

The articles posted on this blog are provided for general information and discussion purposes only. These articles are not intended to suggest anything with respect to the operations or services of this office.

If you or an aging loved one are considering non-medical in-home care in Wilmington, NC, call Griswold Home Care and speak to one of our caring staff members today. Call (910) 363-2866

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