Care for your Elderly Loved One: An Invaluable Resource

Mom has a fall and everything changes.

If you haven’t had this experience or one like it, chances are you could soon. Home care can make all the difference when something like this happens. Elder care at home can also provide a layer of support to prevent a crisis such as a fall, or wandering out of the house, from happening.

Home care helps senior clients with:

Cooking and light housekeeping
Laundry and changing bed linens
Grocery shopping and errands
Companionship and range of motion exercise
Bathing, dressing and grooming assistance
Transportation to medical appointments, the supermarket or pharmacy
Assisting with walking and transferring from bed to wheelchair
Status reporting to family
Medication reminders

Defining Home Care

It is important to distinguish between non-medical home care and medical home health care. Both can be can be a very important part of recovery and ongoing quality of life as one ages.

Non-medical home care goes by a couple of different names. It can be referred to as personal care or private duty care. Medical home health care is usually referred to as home health. Let's take a look at the example below to illustrate the difference between the two and they can work together to achieve an optimal outcome for the client:

Ann is a spry 93-year-old who lives with her husband in their own home. Ann’s husband, Jim, has early-stage dementia and she has been his primary caregiver. She cooks the meals, does the housekeeping and still drives to the store for groceries. A simple cold turns into pneumonia. Ann is hospitalized for two nights and receives IV antibiotics and fluids since she is also dehydrated. When she goes home, Jim is completely overwhelmed with the task of taking care of her. Ann’s daughter decides it is time for home care to help them both. She calls an agency to arrange for 24 hour caregiving. The caregiver reminds Ann to do her breathing treatments, encourages her to drink water, and makes nutritious meals. Having elder care for Ann speeds up her recovery and keeps Jim healthy as well.

As you can see in this story, a caregiver helps Ann recover quickly and safely.

Caregiver Tasks: What Can They Assist With?

Home care can be a vital lifeline. Although “home care” caregivers can’t provide some medical services, there is so much more they do that is vital for older adults, including:

Companionship and Socialization

Isolation and loneliness are recognized as an increasingly serious and growing problem for seniors. Caregivers provide conversation and encourage socialization. They can also be a nurturing and comforting companion and re-instill meaning and purpose in the senior's life.

As a family caregiver, you can’t be expected to be a 24-hour companion to your family member. It isn’t good for your health, or the person for whom you are caring. An in-home caregiver can ease that burden.

Nutrition and Hydration

Nutrition and hydration are critical to health and recovery. Dehydration is a serious problem for the elderly, resulting in frequent hospitalizations. Poor nutrition has been implicated in slower recovery from illness and an increase in hospitalizations as well. Caregivers can shop for food, encourage fluid intake and make meals. They can also reinforce and track any special dietary restrictions.

Heart and Lung Health

In some cases, caregivers can check blood pressure. They can also encourage deep breathing to prevent pneumonia. Supporting seniors in light exercise and healthy eating can also benefit their overall heart and lung health.

Transportation and Errands

Transportation is a significant challenge for many seniors. Most of us know of an older person who continues to drive, even though he or she shouldn’t be. Although it is hard to give up the wheel, having an alternative can make the task easier. Home caregivers can provide this valuable service, whether it is to the pharmacy or a play.

Dressing, Bathing and Transferring

You may have had the experience of being unable to care for yourself due to an accident or injury. If you have had this experience, you know how challenging it is to get dressed and to bathe. Not to mention cook, clean and drive. Now imagine this same scenario for a 90-year-old!

Having care services for older adults in place means a caregiver can assist with helping a client get dressed and out of bed. They can help him or her take a shower and monitor their walking. In-home caregivers can also help someone transfer from the bed to the toilet. Whatever the task may be, care for the elderly bridges the gap to offer a safe, and supportive environment.

Light Exercise & Movement

In some cases, caregivers can check blood pressure. They can also encourage deep breathing to prevent pneumonia. Caring for seniors in light exercise and healthy eating can also benefit their overall heart and lung health.

A caregiver can help reinforce and encourage physical therapy activities. Movement after illness or surgery is critical to healing. Physical therapists provided through home health can get people started on the right track. But physical therapy is time-limited. In most cases, a physical therapist leaves a list of activities for the patient to continue to work on. A home caregiver can monitor those exercises to make certain they are done safely and adequately.

Rehabilitation and Recovery

Recovery for most of us means getting back to our previous level of functioning. Functioning is affected by any number of situations. This could be hospitalization, an illness, a rehab stay or general decline that results in frailty. Recovery in older adults generally takes longer and other co-occurring medical conditions can complicate it.

A caregiver can be an invaluable support. A good care plan developed the Home Care Assistance Care Team with feedback from the family and client can encourage a safe recovery.

Paying for In-Home Care

Our focus is on creating close, trusted relationships with families and designing personalized care plans that evolve to meet the needs of our clients over time. Paying for customized, concierge care can be more affordable than you think!

Call us today to learn how we can work with your family’s budget and can accept and process long term care insurance to deliver a complete plan of care. All for as little as a couple thousand dollars a month.

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We Help Seniors Live Well Where They Prefer: At Home

At Home Care Assistance, we provide customized care to older adults so they can live happier, healthier lives at home. We champion the needs of seniors with a positive, empowering approach to aging that celebrates independence, dignity, and quality of life. Our caregivers receive exceptional training, support, and resources to deliver an unmatched care experience. Learn more about our approach here.

Total Peace of Mind

We understand the trust you place in us, and do everything possible to ensure that the home care experience is worry-free for all concerned.

Community Connections

We are the trusted partner of reputable care professionals in the communities we serve. We pride ourselves on connecting our clients to the care solutions they need - even if it's outside our service offerings.

Elevated Quality of Life

Our Balanced Care Method™ emphasizes healthy mind, body, and spirit. We believe that with the proper care, we can help older family members live happier, healthier, and more fulfilled lives.

Trusted Care Expertise

We are experts in all aspects of home care, from family dynamics to nutrition, around-the-clock care to dementia. And we train our caregivers accordingly.

Committed To Our Clients

We believe the best way to deliver exceptional care is to focus on building long-term, trusting relationships between caregivers, seniors, and their families.

High Quality Care

We go above and beyond to deliver concierge-level care for clients who want, and expect, the very best for their aging loved ones.

Elderly care caregiving services offer you and your loved ones to continue having the same level of freedom while giving advanced security and attention to detail. Your Elder family members will love the attention and companionship we provide. How To Obtain The Best Parent Care And Elderly Care Available: If you have loved ones that are in need of elder or elderly care, you will have to determine where this care will be provided. Some of this can be provided at their home, depending upon their current situation, or you may have to take them to way facility where there will be professionals that can help. If you do need to place them in a home that can provide care, you must be very careful when making the selection. Regardless of where you live, by following these simple suggestions, you will quickly find the best company that is suited to help them. Elder caregivers will help you with everything you need. Contact us for elderly support for your families via our services across the USA.

What Is A Home Care Assistance Service For The Elderly? This type of assistance & service for the elderly can be very specific, or it might also be broad-spectrum. For those that have a specific condition, that requires a specialist, you will need a fully trained professional to help them out at home. If it is just general elder care service, they can help out with medications, exercise, dressing, bathing, and a multitude of other functions. When selecting from the many different elder caregiver service or companies that do offer these services, you must first determine what specific type of care they will need so that it can be provided. Contact us today for more info on elder caregiving & nursing services.

What Type Of Elderly Care Will Be Provided? The type of care that will be provided will include, but is not limited to, cooking, laundry, and shopping for groceries. They can also provide a general companionship service, help them out with motion exercises, and even change their clothes and linens. In regard to medical care service, they can provide them with the pills that they will need and take them to doctor appointments. However, if this is at a facility, all of this will be provided in-house by representatives of the company that are fully qualified to offer this assistance. Different Elder Care Service Options That Are Available: There are several different options that are available, depending upon the age and condition of your loved one and the service you need. They can a get hourly home care service, 24 hour care, or hospital to home care to name a few. If they are currently suffering from some type of mentally debilitating conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer's, there will be specialists that can offer them their assistance. As you look at the many companies that do offer these services, consider reading reviews from those that have use them for the specific reasons that you need to retain their services. Contact our medicaid and adult care providers & services.

Is It Difficult To Get Into One Of These Facilities? Depending upon the size of the facility, and the proportion of elderly people in your community, it could be either difficult or extremely easy to find proper housing for them. In large cities, you have the benefit of having multiple companies that do offer these services. However, you may find that there is a waiting list for many of them. You will want to speak with representatives of each company, find out how much it will cost, and then determine if it is the best elderly place for them to live. Contact our medicaid elder caregivers or adult nurses today to learn about our services.

How To Evaluate Home Care Assistance Services: Home care assistance services can be evaluated using a number of different parameters. First of all, you must find out if they specifically offer the services that your loved one will need. Second, consider looking at comments or testimonials that each company will have which could be on their website or hosted elsewhere online. Finally, it is highly recommended that you always take a personal tour of each facility to make sure that you are comfortable with the people there and the facility itself. How Soon Should You Start Looking For Elderly Care Service Providers? In general, it is recommended that you start searching months before you may actually need to take advantage of their services. It also depends on what type of services that you need. For example, if this is going to be at their facility, they need to have the physical room to allow them to stay. If they need home care assistance, this is often much easier. It simply requires the company to have available people to offer this assistance & services on a daily or weekly basis. We love nursing & helping your elder family members with our unique service. Get service for your adult parents today.

The Easiest Way To Find The Best Elderly Home Care Assistance Providers: The easiest ways to find these companies, and also evaluate them, is to take advantage of what others have already done. There are many websites that will provide you with the information on their website, eliminating the need to find all of this info on your own. Some of these reviews are done by professionals that will go to each facility and interview those that are in charge. Others are simply posting their personal experience with these companies, potentially based on a loved one that is currently there or was once there before. By using this information, this can help you find a facility that is very easy to get into and likely an affordable solution as well. Specific Ways That They Can Help The Elderly At Home: The elderly will often need a wide variety of services, even if they do not have a specific condition. Not only do they provide them with help for general functioning and medical needs, but they can also provide companionship and socialization. Their nutrition, and staying hydrated, are also important things to consider. If they do have a condition with their hearts, lungs, or a brain related disorder, the specialists that will be there will have the training necessary to address problems as they arise. If you are currently looking for a home care assistance provider, you now have a general idea of what to look for and how to make your final choice. These individuals must be trustworthy, and also competent, which is why it requires so much research. If possible, utilize the testimonials or even evaluations that you can find on the web to help you choose the right business. Whether they need help with dressing, bathing, medication, or even exercise, you can easily locate a business that can offer this type of assistance to your elder & elderly parents. Contact us today for all your caring and elderly care giving & medicaid needs via our specialty service.

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Home Care Assistance can help you or a loved one today. Contact us now for your complimentary in-home assessment.

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Senior & Elderly Care For Your Loved Ones