Suddenly needing help from personal care at home can be difficult and emotionally overwhelming for your senior, but also for you. It’s important that you and your elderly family member have a plan to make that transition as smooth and as problem-free as possible. Here are just a few of the ways that you can help your senior to do just that.
Archive for Home Care
Feeling lonely and being socially isolated can often affect the elderly. While they are not the same thing, the negative health effects from struggling with either or both can reduce the quality of life of your aging loved one.
Loneliness is a distressing feeling of being alone or separated from the ones you love. A person can feel lonely even when it appears they are surrounded by people. For example, an elderly person living in a nursing home with lots of other residents can still feel very lonely because of the absence of connection to her loved ones. Social isolation is the lack of social contact and having regular, meaningful connections with people. Someone can live alone and not feel socially isolated because of the other outside connections a person has.
Every year, the CDC tracks data collected through tests for viruses like COVID, the flu, RSV, pneumonia, and a few others. By the end of November, positive test results for respiratory adenovirus, COVID OC43, and RSV were climbing. Flu and cold activity are also increasing. What if you or your dad is sick? You don’t want to spread it to him. If he’s sick, he needs to slow down and let senior home care help out until he’s feeling better.
Have you ever looked at your dad’s nails? It’s much easier to see his fingernails than his toenails, but you should try to see his feet. Many older adults have a harder time bending down to trim toenails, so they stop doing it. This can impact gait and mobility. It’s time to talk to him about nail care and his other personal care at home needs. Here’s what you need to talk about.
How do you know when your dad can’t take care of his home or himself properly? What are the signs you should be looking for? Here are the best ways to tell if it’s time for home care assistance services.
At certain stages or periods of life, some seniors cannot be left alone. This situation may be short lived or long term. Persons with dementia who may engage in unsafe behaviors are often the ones requiring full time monitoring. Patients recovering from serious medical conditions, such as hip injuries and lower extremity injuries which prevents full ambulation, sometimes need around the clock help at first when they get home. Sometimes physicians require a discharge plan that provides for 24 hour coverage for a period of time.
Families and other caregivers trying to meet the needs of such seniors requiring 24 hour care often simply cannot be there due to the demands of their own work and personal lives. Sometimes they need to just get away for respite from the highly demanding work of being a primary caregiver. Touching Hearts can be there some or all of the time when family members and other caregivers are not available.
Full range of services including:
*housekeeping
*meal preparation
*laundry
*safety monitoring
*standby assistance
*reminders
*shopping
Results:
*Meets some discharge plan requirements
*Normal household and personal routines are maintained
*Health risk reduction
*Safe, clean home environment
*Respite for family members and other caregivers
*Socialization for home bound seniors
Your family took steps years ago to work out a future care plan in case your dad ever needed help. He was healthy back then, but now his health has changed. Has your family reviewed his care plan to see if anything needs to be changed?
How Are His Care Needs Changing?
With the changes to his health, what is he going to struggle to do independently? He’s used to shopping on his own, but now he can’t drive. Would he want to have someone take him shopping?
Talking about chronic pain can be difficult for seniors. Often seniors don’t bother mentioning their pain to their doctors because they believe that pain is just a part of getting older. But there’s a big difference between occasional age related pain and chronic pain.
If chronic pain is impacting your senior loved one’s quality of life then they should be able to discuss it with their doctor so that they can be treated for it. Some seniors have trouble talking about their pain so it’s helpful if you or a 24-hour home care provider can help them bring up and discuss chronic pain when they are at the doctor.
How has Touching Hearts at Home of Rochester helped your family?
