Why is dehydration an issue in nursing homes?

Have you ever seen articles recommending you must drink a specific amount of water each day? Do you follow their advice? While we all know that drinking adequate water is crucial for our health, complying can be hard. For someone in a nursing home, it may be even harder.

Many nursing home residents are not able to move about freely. They need help. They also cannot pop into the kitchen to grab a glass of water or make a cup of tea. The kitchen is the domain of the cooks, and residents do not enter.

Some residents will no longer have the ability to check their fluid intake. They might get a glass of water and have forgotten ever drinking it five minutes later. As for the advice to check your urine to see what color it is, just getting to the bathroom may be a struggle for many, without the need to bend down to check the flow color.

Nursing home staff need to ensure adequate hydration

A resident that does not drink enough and gets dehydrated risks their health. Therefore, as with other such matters, it is the staff’s responsibility to ensure people do drink sufficient water.

If your parent seems dehydrated when you visit them in a residential care home, then it is essential to speak up. If you do not see a prompt improvement, then you may need to resort to legal action. When you pay a nursing home provider to look after your parents they must do so. Allowing your parent to become dehydrated may be an indication of wider nursing home neglect.