Hydration with Kim Spencer

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

This is a special present taking of answers for elders with Sarah and getty care and welcome back to answers for elders radio and I am here with Madam Kim Spencer from Sarah and getty care. Kim, welcome to the program thank you for having me. You know, Kim, I glad that we’re this is your second interview, so hopefully you’re a little bit less nervous and and we’re excited to have you on the show because one of the things that you brought up today that I think is a really important topic is dehydration and I think one of the things that we all need to remember, including ourselves, just even if we’re not over sixty five, is do we drink enough water and are we hydrated? And and there’s a lot of compounding factors. If you’re you’re not. And so, Kim, fill us in a little bit about dehydration specifically when it comes to seniors. Well, they say that with a decrease of one to two percent of water really affects your cognitive thinking. HMM, which is huge. Well, it is, especially if those, you know, seniors are suffering from dementia and miles might even mild dementia, water and and also, you know, eating water rich foods. And a lot of time seniors don’t do that. They don’t go. You know they’ll, they’ll do something that’s maybe easier, but they don’t take the time to eat fresh fruit and vegetables and things like that, which also helps in the in the hydration. Right fruits like watermelon, vegetables like celery have a lot of water in them. And then soups are really good because they’re basically water based. Yes, very much so, and it’s really having that ability to balance out. You know the Diet. I know that it’s so important. So what happens if, for example, of what are some symptoms to know that you’re dehydrated? Well, one one thing is to do the test of this skin on your top of your hand. If you pull it up and it goes right back, then you’re good, but if it doesn’t, if it kind of stays up, then you’re dehydrated. So that’s a quick time. I’m doing it right down a test. Are doing it right now and I’m squeezing at the top of my hand right and and and look at that. You need to drink some water. I need to drink some water. On this warm sunny day, it’s like a little and you know, you realize I’ve had like three bottles of water today. You know, I be dehydrated from yesterday. Yeah, that’s it. So that just tells you the story. And you know what, I am really bad about drinking water. So, you know, that’s a really good reminder to know that. So you know obviously what happens when you’re dehydrated. So many things happen. Constipation, just feeling blurry vision, vomiting can help. MMM, just a lot of different things, just not not feeling well, not having very high energy levels. You know, they say that the average person should drink eight glasses of water a day, but that’s just a general rule. Some people, bigger people, need to drink more, athletes need to drink more. Seniors forget to drink water. So it’s important to always have a water bottle next to them, HMM, and encourage them. I know for myself I love water with lemon in it, orange or cucumber, just a flavored a little bit and I don’t know, it’s very refreshing. I’ve had, for the first time yesterday water with cucumber and it was lovely and it was just something unique that I hadn’t ever had before. So that’s really a good thing to it is absolutely and it’s something really easy that, if you’re going to call on your parents, is to you know, take a little get one of those water filtered, you know filtered water containers and fill it up and you know, throw some you know, lemons in there or whatever you want to do, and they have instant cold drinking water, which is really important, especially in the summer months where, you know, there might be warm in their house. They’re wearing less clothes, but they’re certainly again, they’re little more active, they’re out in the garden, they’re doing a little bit more things and of course, obviously sweating will do, you know, obviously make them more thirsty and more dehydrated. Exactly. And sometimes medications people take two ABS. So I’ve got about kind of yeah, deep make them dehydrated. Yes, I can imagine that. Or they were, they were too much closed. Yeah, summer to how does blood pressure effect dehydration? It or how does dehydration effect blood pressures? Probably what it yeah, it lowers your blood pressure. Yeah, so if you’re dehydrated, your blood pressure actually goes lower, goes lower and that if you are automatically have high blood pressure. That doesn’t necessarily mean, though, that that’s a good thing, though right now it’s in a bad way and I think a lot of people don’t drink enough water or they wait till it’s too late. If you wait till you’re thirsty, like your oh my gosh, I feel like I’m in a desert and I need to drink some water, you are so dehydrated by that point and it’s scary. I know I’ve had friends that have and I’ve seen it working in different communities where they have to go to the hospital and that’s the number one admitting in seniors. Diagnosis when they when they are admitted to a hospital, that they’re dehydrated. Wow, and a lot of things can happen when seniors dehydrated. Also, Uti they get a your urinary track, infection, lots of different things. Yeah, and obviously just lifestyle. There’s all kinds of things that is as you’re living your life, you have a lot of routines and I know some seniors they don’t like the taste of water. They don’t want to drink water, but there’s other ways outside of water that they can hydrate themselves, like what we talked about, you know, fresh foods and vegetables, and seniors often times won’t take the time to prepare a nice salad for dinner. Instead they’ll they’ll do something different and obviously, if you’re an adult child up there take you know, taking care of your parents. Some things you can do is fresh fruits and vegetables, you know, cut them up and put them in containers in they’re in their refrigerators so they can grab, you know, a pair that’s already cut up or an orange that’s already been peeled or some things like that that they can already too. But, you know, they can be soft. But it certainly can help to add hydration and, you know, and and a lot of valuable nutrition to them other than grabbing a candy bar, which is what my mom used to do right like, you know, the the the sense of taste, the last one to leave your body as it starts to, you know, get older is the sense of sweet. So that’s why a lot of times why seniors gravitate towards candy, because that’s what they can taste. And so we can just try to think of more you know, intelligent choices for them and I know that good fresh food like a banana, different things like that can be helpful. Correct. Yeah, so can tell me a little bit about like obviously normal level of hydration. It depends on everybody, but talk to me a little bit about you know, how do you, as a home carree agency, help seniors to drink better? Well, Serengetti care really the caregivers really encourage drinking lots of water. Like I said, they may have a bottle at the bedside forum and always have a glass of water wherever they are. Encourage them handom water. Um, you know, not wait till you’re surely really thirsty. It’s a habit. Like anything, it’s a habit. So it’s water. It’s something that you guys do regularly and other woods, when you go see a client and and work with them, probably one of the top priority things you do is make sure that they’re drinking water correct yeah, that’s awesome. And then do you also help? You know, I know you do some meal preparation and I’m sure you’re very mindful that there are water rich type foods as well, but are included in that diet. Yeah, lots of soups and salads and just good, healthy, clean eating. So what do you find is the easiest thing to do to get seniors to drink more water? I think put, you know, fruit in it, orange slice, a little squeeze of lime or lemon, whatever they prefer, or orange, you know, cucumber, just really, you know, given them some choices to let them feel a part of you know, good decisionmaking and stuff. Yeah, and you could probably, as a professional, you guys can probably tell right away when it’s time to have them drink some water. I think. You know, water so good. It clings, clings out, flushes out everything, keeps your regular. Yeah, and your skin just looks glowing when you drink a lot of water. Yes, yes, I know that that’s so important to get you just if flushes your system, keeps it clean and you know, it’s helps so many things. Is specially you know, you know, when your body is seventy, five, eighty years old, it’s been around for a long time and it’s like your bladder is got some probably some adhesions on the inside of it and you know, any the little thing that you’re not taking care of that that this really being you know, flushed out is going to attract more UTI as you’re anary tract and fushins and things like that. So this is so such an important topic to talk about. And lack of water to affects all your organs. They’re just not functioning properly. Absolutely so the mission today. Everyone. Thank you, Kim, for that. Drink more water and for those of the you, if you’re not in your vehicle or if you are in your car and you have a bottle of water, open it now and drink some water and think about how you can do that, you know, bring that nutritional piece more into your life. So, Kim, how do we reach you? Well, you can reach me, Kim Spencer, at Seengetti Care, Kim at Sarrengetti Carecom, which is seer and Geti, the arecom, and you can reach me by myself at four to five, three hundred and eighty seven, zero seven two five. And I know that Serengeti Care covers a huge portion of huge sound. So why don’t you go into really the areas that you serve here? Well, we do home care and also home help. We have licensed urns and CNA’s and we cover from Tacoma on up past Mary’Sville. So that’s a band we can handle a lot. So you know, Marysville down to Tacoma is a pretty large area and and I happen to know that that on Thursday you guys were in sumner. So that was really exciting and I know that you shared your part of the classes that we do, the answers for Elders Academy, and so we’re really looking forward and to, you know, having you in future classes and certainly thank you again for all the contributions that you make. Thank you of a great summer you too, and drink some water. We will. This has been a special presentation of answers for elders with Seengetti care. For more information for Seengetti Care, go to Seengetti carecom. That’s sere en Geti see a recom