Introduction
The flu can affect anyone, especially children, the elderly, and those with weaker immune systems. This article shares simple and effective ways to care for loved ones with flu, while highlighting how PRUHealth insurance can help ease medical expenses and provide peace of mind during unexpected health situations.
Contents
What are the symptoms of flu?
Flu symptoms may vary from person to person. Common flu symptoms include:
- body aches
- chills
- cough
- fatigue
- fever
- headache
- runny or stuffy nose
- sore throat
- vomiting, diarrhea, or decreased appetite in children
How can you take care of your beloved one with flu?
Since the flu is caused by a virus, antibiotics have no role for treatment of flu. But you need to boost immunity since good immunity can get rid of flu faster. The rest are only symptomatic treatments.
Flu symptoms may last for a week or so. So during this time, you can help your beloved one with the flu to ease symptoms using the following tips.
For symptomatic treatments,
- Give paracetamol for fever and body aches. For children, calculate the dose according to body weight.
- Give appropriate medications for cough and runny nose.
- Drink enough ORS for diarrhea and vomiting.
- Gurgle with warm salt water for sore throat.
To create a comfortable space for the sick person,
- Make sure that they can rest undisturbed and encourage sleep.
- Improve airflow in the room and make sure to get good lighting.
- Keep the room clean.
- Change pillow cases and bedsheets frequently.
- Take a bath with appropriate temperature water. Maintain personal hygiene practices.
- Help them change their clothes daily, or more often when sweating.
For nutrition during flu,
- Give frequent and small nutritious meals.
- Provide immune booster nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin A and zinc daily.
- Soft and bland food if suffering from indigestion.
- Offer plenty of liquids, including water, ORS, broths and tea with honey and lemon.
How can prevent flu transmission among family members?
Flu is so contagious that one family member with flu can spread the others in a short time. To prevent flu in patient carer and other family members:
- Keep the infected person in a separate room so that the patient can have a full rest and prevent transmission to others.
- Wear a face mask while attending to sick person.
- Avoid being face-to-face with the sick person. If possible, it is best to spend the least amount of time in close contact with a sick person.
- When holding sick children, place their chin on your shoulder so they will not cough in your face.
- Wash your hands after contact with sick person.
Other tips to prevent transmission among family members are:
- Clean high-touch surfaces (doorknobs, phones, table surfaces) regularly with disinfectants.
- Wash hands frequently.
- Improve and increase airflow in the home.
- Keep yourself in good immunity.
In that way, flu transmission can be cut out among family members.
Ready to Explore Your Options?
Flu is so contagious that it can spread from one family member to another easily. Flu symptoms are very debilitating so keep your family members comfortable using the above tips.
Though flu can be recovered in a couple of days, high risk persons such as children, pregnant women, immunocompromised persons, elderly can suffer from complications (eg. pneumonia) and need admission to hospital.
For such an unexpected event, medical expenses for hospital admission can be covered by PRUHealth. PRUHealth can help you cover expenses during hospital admission and treatments without spending your family savings so that you can be treated peacefully without stress.
