5 easy ways to care for a sick family member

We explain how caring for a loved one can become easy, provided you have the right approach to disinfection.

it is human nature to dread illnesses, because many of them necessitate bed rest. It is quite tough to care for a sick person in the home; you are also afraid of the illness spreading to other members of the family. We present 5 steps to care for a sick family member:

1 Separate them from the others. The first thing to do is to quarantine the patient. This means segregating them from the rest of the house. Prepare the guest room for them, so that you can access it easily and bring them their meals and medicines. Keep pets and small children away. If caring for a child, make sure that they have their favorite toys and games to amuse themselves with. Keep the windows open so that they may benefit from the fresh air.

2 Prepare hot, nutritious meals. You can fight most infections with the right foods. Home cooked food that is easily digestible helps the patient gain strength and recover faster. If the person is not very hungry, try giving them soup, or fruit/vegetable juice, or rice broth, or even steamed chicken. Insist on them finishing their meals because they medication cannot be taken on an empty stomach.

3 Change their bedding every day. If the person is suffering from an infectious disease, it is important to keep their room sanitised as much as possible. For a few minutes a day, shift them to a couch or settee in their room while you change their bedding. Do wear latex gloves when you touch the bedding, because it may be rife with infectious germs. Help the patient into freshly laundered clothes after a sponge bath.

4 Clean the surfaces in the room with a disinfectant. The ill person can feel better when their room is sanitised properly. You can do this by using disinfectant sprays on the bedstead, handrails, night stand, cabinet handles, etc. You can remove traces of the illness-causing germs by spraying the surfaces of common use in your house with the disinfectant spray – it kills 99.9% germs and viruses that cause illnesses. Spray the cleaned surfaces at a distance of 15 cm, and allow the mist to dry. Once the room is cleaner and germ-free, the patient recovers much faster.

5 Wash their clothes separately. The ill person’s clothes and bedding cannot be washed with the rest of your laundry load. Also, just washing the clothes in your usual detergent is not enough. Make a separate load and add at least one capful of disinfectant liquid to the washing water. The disinfectant liquid kills the germs present in the clothes.