Dry Sore and Tender Skin in Seniors

Are you a senior who has dry sore and tender skin? There has to an answer! Yes, the answer is moisturizers.  It is important to moisturize your skin in the senior years. This is because the skin tends to dry out as part of the aging process, causing dry, sore and tender skin in seniors. The skin becomes thinner, losing some of its protective water/fatty layer.

Read on for ideas and information on skin that feels better.

If you are a resident in a rehab center, perhaps for speech or occupational therapy, you can apply these great tips. If you are visiting as an outpatient, you will find some useful tips here too.

 

Moisturizers Keep Water in the Skin

Invest in a suitable moisturizer for the hands and the face of a senior person.

Beauty moisturizing creams for senior women are often rich in malic acid and retinoic acid.

A general light moisturizing cream can be used for the rest of the body. Some of the places that people commonly apply moisturizer to include the arms, legs, the neck, chest area.

Read the good habits listed below to keep in moisture and avoid dry, sore and tender skin in seniors.

If moisturizing is not sufficient to fix dry, itchy skin, a dermatologist can help find a solution. Occasionally, medicated creams are needed for dry, itchy skin.

 

Moisturizers and Mobility

If you cannot apply moisturizer to hard-to-reach places for reasons of lack of mobility, look online for long handled applicators .

A family member or friend might be happy to indulge you, by rubbing some moisturizing cream or lotion into dry facial skin or to the hands.

 

Foods that Can Promote Skin Moisturization

Foods that promote moisture and elasticity in the skin are foods that are rich in:

• Healthy fats. If your diet allows, include these in your diet – fatty fish, avocados and walnuts
• Vitamin A from sweet potatoes, red and yellow peppers.
• Vitamin B3 from sources such as from liver and chicken breast, mushrooms, eggs, leafy greens.

 

Skin-Drying Habits to Avoid

• Over-frequently washing the hands or face.
• Use of harsh hand soap. Instead, use a soap-free soap.
• Sucking of lips. This can dry them out. Dry lips will come back to life with some loving lip balm.
• Overheating the room with different types of heaters

 

Good Habits that Promote Skin Hydration

• Drinking sufficient water, in accordance with your diet.
• Use of a cool mist humidifier.

 

Outdoors

• Use lip balm summer and winter to keep lips moisturized.
• In the summer and on sunny days in other seasons remember to use sunscreen. This is the prime tool against sun-dried skin.
• On cool and wintry days, when going outdoors, wrap up warm. Protect your hands with gloves.

 

Dry sore and tender skin in seniors is not something a person has to live with, especially if it is not due to a medical cause. Moisturizing the skin is often a fairly simple solution. Rubbing in a little moisturizer can also do wonders for a person’s morale. That is especially important, if you are a patient in rehab. So apply that moisturizer to yourself or to a loved one. Let that good feeling of being loved and cared-for spread all over!

 

 

Original Photo by Janine Joles on Unsplash