Home Care in Boynton Beach FL

Did you know that your loved one’s senses of smell and taste can be really important? Unfortunately, as she ages, she’s likely to lose them. Here’s what you need to know.

How Taste and Smell Work Together

Your loved one’s taste buds are the starting point for determining flavors, but her sense of smell, including her nose and her olfactory nerve, help to interpret and deepen those flavors. So both senses work in tandem together. As your loved one ages, her taste buds and her olfactory nerve start to change. Part of that is because the body stops producing as many taste buds and part of that can be due to illnesses, medications, or other factors.

Losing Her Appetite

While losing her senses of taste and smell can be an issue for a lot of reasons, your loved one’s loss of appetite is one that can really impact her health. As food becomes less appealing, your loved one may find fewer and fewer reasons to eat. Her appetite can be further impacted by side effects from medications or from health conditions, but finding food unattractive in terms of smell or flavor can be the biggest reason that she avoids eating.

Food Safety Becomes an Issue

Another big problem for your elderly loved one is that she may not be able to recognize as readily when food isn’t good to eat anymore. We rely on smell and taste more than we realize to determine whether food is safe to eat and not having either of those senses working at optimum levels can mean that your loved one ingests food that really shouldn’t be eaten.

Look for Other Solutions

On the appetite front, you can work with your loved one to find flavors that she still enjoys to help jump start her eating. Also talk to her doctor about potential solutions from a medical standpoint. As far as food safety goes, it’s a good idea to regularly check your loved one’s fridge, freezer, and pantry for food that might be past it’s better days. You might also want to consider having someone, whether it’s yourself, other family members, or even elderly care providers, cooking for your loved one.

Always talk to your loved one’s doctor to make sure that there aren’t any other problems contributing to your loved one’s senses of smell and taste diminishing.

If You Or An Aging Loved One Are Considering Hiring Professional home care in Boynton Beach, FL, Please Contact The Caring Staff at Assisting Hands Home Care at 561­-829­-3080 Today.