Are you planning on any traveling with your elderly parents this year – for holiday visits with long distance family members or perhaps just to have a fun trip out to see sights and enjoy lovely scenery? My senior mom and I just returned from a 7 hour drive to visit some of her great-grandkids. It was a lovely visit but we did come back with a few tips to share with fellow journey-ers.
I routinely keep 4-5 lap blankets of different weights in my car – for her and for my grandkids. That way, if the car is too cool for anyone, they can balance it out easily with a snuggly warm blanket. Then, if they get too hot, it’s easy to toss it off. And the different weights are especially helpful for my senior mom, as she can go from very cold to very warm much faster than normal. This allows her to easily swap blankets as her body temperature changes without having the heater or the cooler blast her in the face to try to accomplish the same thing.
She has always enjoyed car trips in the past, but the past couple of years they’ve been less pleasant. She has found that sitting too long bothers her back and her arthritis. On the trip out, we stopped every couple of hours to walk around, get a drink, use the restroom, etc. and that worked well. By the time we headed home, she was happy over the visit, exclaiming, “This was SUCH a nice time together,” yet aching more than her normal amount. She took some medicine before we left that helped a bit and also encouraged sleeping on the way. She didn’t feel up to… (keep reading… http://eldercareabcblog.com/2-easy-travel-tips-for-long-trips-with-elderly-seniors/)