Senior Care Tips: Winter Lip Care Routine
Senior Care Kentwood MI
The cold winter weather can be challenging on your aging loved ones’ bodies, but as you are focusing your winter senior care efforts on keeping their joints comfortable and mobile, their skin warm, and their sinuses healthy, it is important that you do not forget about the health of their lips. The skin on your lips is among the thinnest and most vulnerable of skin on your entire body, but it is also some of the most easily forgotten. Many people do not include special lip care in their usual hygiene and grooming routines, leaving their lips vulnerable to the chapping, cracking, pain, and even tears that could allow germs and bacteria into your parents’ body, increasing their risk of serious infection and illness. Making sure that you take care of your parents’ lips throughout the cold and dry months of the winter season is critical to ensuring that they stay comfortable, healthy, and at lower risk for pain, bleeding, and infection.
Use these tips, and share them with your parents’ senior health care services provider, to help keep your parents’ lips healthier and more comfortable throughout the winter months:
- Exfoliate. Exfoliation is important for the skin all over your body, but you might not often think about exfoliating your lips. Fortunately this is an easy and even fun element to add to your usual care routine. Simply mix your favorite oil such as jojoba, almond, or even olive oil with coarse sugar and your favorite flavor of essential oil until it creates a very thick paste and use this as a scrub to gently remove dead skin cells and stimulate the growth of new skin. Wipe the excess away with a warm wet cloth, pat dry, and immediately follow with a moisturizing balm.
- Moisturize. You might have noticed that the skin on the rest of your parents’ bodies is calling out for some extra moisture during the winter months, and the same goes for their lips. This skin is up to ten times thinner than skin on the rest of the body, meaning it loses moisture much faster. Use a high quality balm without chemicals that could irritate the skin such as alcohol, or a high water content which will just dehydrate the lips worse. Apply moisturizer in the morning before leaving the home and again at night for all-day protection. To further reduce moisture loss, make sure your lips are covered when you go outside into cold weather, especially if it is windy.
- Stop licking. Discourage your parents from licking their lips or splashing water on them if they are feeling dry. While these “tricks” might make them feel better for a few moments, they will actually make the situation much worse, and could leave behind bacteria that could lead to or worsen an infection or illness. If licking is a problem for seniors with cognitive limitations or difficulties that make it harder for them to understand why they should not lick, consider asking their doctor or your pharmacist about products that use a bitter taste to discourage licking so that they will eventually learn to stop doing it.
If you or someone you know needs help with senior care in Kentwood MI, contact Gauthier Family Home Care. We provide quality and affordable home care services in our community. Call us at (616) 258-2300 for more information.
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