Health under the Spotlight Series: Hypertension

Another blog in our ‘Health Under The Spotlight’ Series. In this series, we’ll be dissecting some special conditions and explaining how, as a care provider, we would help to support our residents. This week, we’ll be dissecting Hypertension.

What is hypertension

Our blood pressure increases naturally as we grow older. Many cases of hypertension in elderly people can not be traced to one specific cause.

Though, in certain elderly people, it is caused by medication or some other medical issue. Generally, hypertension (also known as high blood pressure) can lead to several health issues. For this reason, it is also referred to as ‘the silent killer’. It can, for example, increase their risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack and the chances of developing kidney problems increases.

How we we check blood pressure in our Residents

We keep a recorded log of any changes noticed for our residents. Part of this process is the regular monitoring of blood pressure. As it is normal for blood pressure to rise and fall throughout the day, we will carry out checks a couple of times on different days. Hypertension in elderly people can only be diagnosed when repeated readings are high.

How we support you

When high blood pressure is detected, in any of our residents, we will inform your/our local GP. We’ll then continue to work in partnership with them to try and make changes to your lifestyle.

For starters, we can try to improve dietary intake by ensuring that we find alternatives for your favourite food. For example, if a person likes many puddings, we can ask our chef to make sugar-free puddings. If a person likes high salted food we can adapt portion sizes to limit the salt intake. We will discuss this of course first with you and family members.

We will design a tailored care plan around your blood pressure and put in targets for us to improve your hypertension.

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you. For a complimentary pre-assessment for care, medical and support needs – please call our Care and Nursing homes individually or contact head office directly for more information.

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