Helping older people stay hydrated at home

Good hydration helps keep the mind and body healthy and prevents someone becoming dehydrated. At the AHSN, we have developed several resources to help, especially in these unprecedented times. 

During this time of self-isolation due to COVID-19, we wanted to share these resources with you to help support older people, their carers’ and families.

Dehydration is a common cause of hospital admission and can be life threatening. It can cause a range of problems, such as slowing down recovery time, leading to infections (e.g. urinary tract infections), increasing risk of falls, increasing risk of developing pressure sores and making the symptoms of other illnesses worse. As such, dehydration also conveys serious economic consequences.

Older people (over 65 years) are at particular risk of dehydration due to a combination of age-related changes (e.g. decreased sense of thirst and kidneys not working as well), reliance on others to support them to drink and behavioural and cognitive factors such as the presence of dementia.

To help address this and promote good hydration, key hydration messages and debunk the myths, we have produced a tri-fold leaflet and a poster on staying hydrated for older people.

The resources include the signs and symptoms that may indicate you’re becoming dehydrated, and how to keep hydrated to avoid problems like infections and falls which could require hospitalisation at a time when the NHS is seeing unprecedented demand.

Resources can be downloaded, for free and printed in colour, in black and white. A leaflet has also been prepared in large text for the visually impaired.