Usually, the goal is to keep your aging parent's blood pressure below 140/90 mmHg (130/80 mmHg if you have diabetes or chronic kidney disease). Caregivers can ask doctor what their elderly mom or dad's blood pressure goal should be.
Some people can prevent or control high blood pressure by changing to healthier habits, such as:
- Following a heart-healthy diet, which includes cutting down on salt and sodium and eating healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products
- Losing excess weight and staying at a healthy weight
- Being physically active (for example, walking 30 minutes every day)
- Quitting smoking
- Limiting alcohol intake
Sometimes blood pressure stays too high even when a person makes these kinds of healthy changes. In that case, it is necessary to add medicine to help lower blood pressure. Medicines will control blood pressure, but they cannot cure it. Your elderly will need to take blood pressure medicine for a long time.
Blood pressure medicines work in different ways to lower blood pressure. Often, two or more medicines work better than one. Some medicines lower blood pressure by removing extra fluid and salt from your body. Others affect blood pressure by slowing down the heartbeat or by relaxing and widening blood vessels. Below are the types of medicine used to treat high blood pressure:
- Diuretics are sometimes called water pills. They work by helping your kidneys flush excess water and salt from your body. This reduces the amount of fluid in your blood, and your blood pressure goes down. There are different types of diuretics. They are often used along with other high blood pressure medicines and may be combined with another medicine in one pill.
- Beta blockers help the heart beat slower and with less force. The heart pumps less blood through the blood vessels, and your pressure goes down.
- Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors keep the body from making a hormone called angiotensin II, which normally causes blood vessels to narrow. ACE inhibitors prevent this narrowing, so your blood pressure goes down.
- Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) are newer blood pressure medicines that protect your blood vessels from angiotensin II. As a result, the blood vessels relax and become wider, and your blood pressure goes down.
- Calcium channel blockers (CCBs) keep calcium from entering the muscle cells of your heart and blood vessels. This causes blood vessels to relax, and your blood pressure goes down.
- Alpha blockers reduce nerve impulses that tighten blood vessels, allowing blood to pass more easily and causing blood pressure to go down.
- Alpha-beta blockers reduce nerve impulses to blood vessels the same way alpha blockers do, but they also slow the heartbeat, as beta blockers do. As a result, blood pressure goes down.
- Nervous system inhibitors relax blood vessels by controlling nerve impulses from the brain. This causes blood vessels to become wider and blood pressure to go down.
- Vasodilators open blood vessels by directly relaxing the muscle in the vessel walls, causing blood pressure to go down.
It is important that caregivers ensure their elderly parent takes blood pressure medicine at the same time each day and not skip days or cut pills in half to save money.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health, "Heart Failure" section, provides leadership for a national program in diseases of the heart, blood vessels, lung, and blood; blood resources; and sleep disorders.