If your loved one is elderly and/or ill, you want him to have the sort of care and attention his condition calls for. Many people think that can only be found in a nursing facility, but that sort of move can be extremely disrupting and distressing to your loved one. With in-home care, your loved one can remain in the home he or she knows and loves, while still being cared for and kept safe and healthy. Dale Anderson is the president of Tacoma, Washington’s Right at Home care agency. He believes in extensive training and careful, quality staffing to bring top notch caregivers into your home.
The Benefits of In-Home Care and Facility Staffing in One Agency
If you and your family are considering a caregiver for your loved one, you need to know a few basics to get started. Especially important are the types of caregivers available to cater to your loved one’s important needs. The right agency staffs care from basic to medically advanced.
Choosing an In-Home Agency That Trains
Having a caregiver for your loved one is a big deal. You need someone that you trust, and most importantly, someone that your loved one trusts. Choosing an agency with extensive and ongoing training programs is the best way to ensure your caregiver is experienced and knowledgeable.
Choosing In-Home Care for Your Loved One
Anderson explains how to go about finding an agency that provides care for your loved one. From the initial questions to working with the caregiver on a routine, here’s an overview of the process.
How In-Home Care Can Help Your Loved One Stay Sharp
The company that a caregiver provides for our elderly loved one can be a big comfort: We know someone is there with him, that he is not so lonely. There’s even more to that companionship than that, though. In-home care agencies train the caregivers to provide company in a way that also challenges your loved one, with things like stimulating conversation and problem-solving games, keeping their minds sharp and alert.
Help When You Come Home from the Hospital
Going through the whole hospital process, whether it’s surgery or treatment for a condition or disease, is stressful enough. The last thing you want to worry about is how you’ll get by for those days or weeks after you arrive home - but there’s a good chance you’ll need help getting around with a healing injury or taking post-surgery medications. Don’t worry, in-home care agencies are here to help with short term care.
24-Hour Live-In Care
In some cases, care for a few hours a day may not be enough for your loved one. The best way to ensure constant health, safety, and comfort might be live-in care. It sounds like a scary thing for your budget, but it doesn’t have to be. Your in-home care agency wants your loved one to get the care he deserves.
Choosing a Caregiver for Your Loved One’s Housework
Housework can be overwhelming for anyone, but it can be especially daunting for our loved one, who might be older, weaker, and even sick. At this point, housework shouldn’t be something he has to worry about. That’s why in-home care agencies staff caregivers who can handle the gamut of housework.
Companionship Care for Your Loved One
Few things are worse than living faraway from our family members, or having to work too much to get to see them often, when they are sick. A caregiver can do so much more than just offer medical attention. Caregivers also offer the kind of care we want our family member to have: companionship.
Choosing Respite Care
Respite means a “break,” or a “rest.” And even though you might not want to say it, your family might need one from the time, money, and attention required to care for an elderly loved one. While you want to care for him all the time, sometimes it just isn’t possible, and that’s when a caregiver can offer that respite.
Helping Your Loved Ones Take Their Medicine
With many diseases, medication is the key to keeping everything under control. A missed dose can make the difference between being completely fine and ill. But often when our loved ones are older, it gets harder to remember to take the medicine, or it might be more difficult to actually give the doses. A caregiver ensures that your loved ones are always taking the medicine they need when they need it.
In-Home Care for Couples
You already know having full time care for a loved one can be expensive. So, what if you need care for both of your parents? Doubly expensive. Not necessarily so. The right in-home care agency doesn’t want your parents to be denied care because of high costs, so many offer discounts on care for couples.
Hospice Care to Improve the Quality of One’s Life
Just because there is no cure for a terminal illness doesn’t mean it does not require care and medical attention. By providing your loved one with hospice care, they can stay happy, comfortable, and healthy for as long as possible, and the time they have will be made that much more valuable - which is what we want for them at this difficult time.
In-Home Meal Preparation for Your Elderly Loved Ones
As your loved one grows older, he may become too weak or too sick to prepare his own meals - and that can be dangerous. An in-home care agency can provide your loved one with a caregiver who can handle all aspects of meal preparation, from dietary planning and grocery shopping to cooking and cleaning up.
Hygiene Care for Your Elderly Loved Ones
Showering, shaving, brushing our teeth - these are all things that seem so simple now. But when you are older and perhaps sick, these things can be too hard to do alone, and not doing them can lead to health risks and general discomfort. You can avoid that for your loved one with a caregiver there to take care of all hygienic needs.
Personal Response Systems
If your elderly loved one lives alone, there is a constant state of worry. Who is there if he or she falls, if there is a medical emergency? He or she might not need full time care yet, but you still want the comfort of knowing he or she is always safe. A personal response system can instantly summon either a caregiver or even emergency services the second something happens.
In-Home Care for Arthritis
When we think of arthritis, we think of pain in the joints that, even if extreme, can be overcome to get on with the day. But that’s not always the case. With some forms of arthritis being quite severe, coupled with the natural weakness that comes with age, the disease can prevent one from doing normal, everyday things. In some cases, it is necessary to hire a caregiver to help with vital tasks like taking medications and preparing meals.
In-Home Care for Diabetes
Diabetes is a disease that requires strict daily maintenance for both medications and diet. If your loved one is older, weaker, and has trouble remembering when to take his medicine, it is a good idea to have a caregiver present to help with these things that can keep the severity of the disease at bay.
In-Home Care for Alzheimer’s
Unfortunately, the nature of Alzheimer’s disease robs our loved ones, over time, of the ability to do the little, everyday things that used to come so easily. However, that doesn’t mean our loved one must be uprooted out of his or her home to enter a nursing facility. A caregiver in the home can help him get through the day comfortably, maintaining the dignity of living on his or her own.
In-Home Care for Parkinson’s Disease
There are different stages of Parkinson’s that will require different levels of care. Some patients with the disease may only need help a few hours a few times a week to help with medications, some patients may need 24-hour care to help with moving around the home. When you choose an agency that staffs all levels of care, you can be assured that the transitions will be made smoothly with little to no disruption to your loved one.
Long Term Care Insurance
If there’s one thing that can keep a family from hiring a caregiver for one of its members, it’s the cost. The 24-hour, live-in care your family member needs can come with an overwhelming price tag. But, it’s not up to you and you alone to find the means to pay for it. Your family member deserves the care he or she needs, regardless of price, and that’s why long term care insurance is here to help.
