With the coronavirus still stalking our streets and preventing us from returning to a normal way of life, it feels more important than ever to keep your family out of the hospital at all times – where infection rates from COVID-19 can be higher. Keeping your family safe during this uncertain time is all about preventing injury and illness, and knowing how to treat minor illnesses and injuries within your home. In this short guide, you’ll learn some key first aid tips that you can carry forward to treat your family in your home in the future.
First Aid Equipment
You can never have too much first aid equipment in your home. The vast majority of first aid like bandages, medical dressings, disinfectants and pharmaceuticals, have a long life, which means that they’ll be useful today, next year, or in a decade’s time.
What you’re especially looking for are trustworthy medical coatings that you can invest in to treat open wounds that your family is likely to develop over time. On the knees of children, you’re often going to find grazes that need a light first aid touch to heal. And in the kitchen, grown-ups are sometimes a little clumsy with the knives, requiring plasters and dressings themselves.
Pills and Pharmaceuticals
There are around a dozen common medicines that you should keep in your home to treat your family when they fall ill or have a minor medical complaint. Before you invest in these medicines, though, you should check which are appropriate for children: some stronger medicines are recommended for adult consumption only. Look especially for treatments for:
- Headaches and migraines
- Upset stomachs and dysentery
- Period pain and cramps
- Pain and aches
All of these can be adequately treated from home with the use of pharmaceuticals – so long as you have them in stock.
Medical Advice
Sometimes, your family members will be displaying symptoms that you’re unsure how to treat. In these cases, the advice of a doctor or medical professional is important to guide the administration of your first aid or treatment – especially in the case of children.
For sound advice, it’s always worth calling up your family doctor, or a healthcare professional that you trust, for a second opinion on treatments. There are also certified and trusted medical websites, containing a wealth of information, which you can visit in order to learn more about the health issues afflicting you or your family.
Home Treatments and Tests
Finally, for health issues that are less pressing like potential allergies and intolerances, you may be able to order a home test, which you can give to your family member in order to determine if they have a certain illness.
In these cases, you should again search online for the availability of tests that you can use on your family members. Remember that these tests will only help to guide you towards a diagnosis – and that a visit to a doctor is the only way to be sure that your family member has the illness identified by the home test.
These four tips will help you treat your family at home, without having to take a trip to the hospital or the local healthcare center in this unprecedented year.