Four Key Areas to Help Your Loved One Age in Place
Have you talked to your aging loved one about being a caregiver for them as they strive to stay in their home and age in place? Maybe they don’t want to be a burden, or spend their final years in a strange environment, but whatever the reason, many elderly people desire to live in their own homes as they age. They might need some assistance in certain areas to make this dream come true, and as their caregiver, you might be wondering how to offer it.
Before you start the journey as your loved one’s caregiver, here are four areas you should discuss with your loved one about where they think they’ll need assistance to stay in their home.
Health Care
Skilled Nursing Philadelphia, PA: Aging in Place
Does your loved one have health issues that she needs help managing? A skilled nursing care provider can be hired to help your parent with physical therapy, medication management, and other healthcare tasks. Even if your parent doesn’t need a skilled nursing care provider at this time, you might want to discuss what type of help your parent may need after an unexpected surgery or hospital stay. It can bring a bit of peace of mind if your loved one knows that if something happens to her, she won’t lose her home. She’ll have you and possibly a skilled nursing care provider help her through it while living at home.
Home Care
Does your loved one need help with certain household chores in order to maintain her home? If chores like laundry, lawn care, or grocery shopping are too physical for your loved one, can you assist in these areas? Another option might be to recruit other family members or friends to help with a weekly visit to complete a task. One person could bring your loved one grocery shopping each week and another one could come in and do the laundry weekly.
Personal Care
If your loved one has some physical limitations, there might be personal care tasks that she’ll need assistance with. You might consider having a home care provider come in to help with hair care, bathing, or getting dressed. You can also review her home to see if there are products you can purchase to help her perform these duties on her own, such as some railings to help her get in and out of the tub, or a button fastener to help her button those tough little buttons.
Meal Care
Eating right is an important part of staying healthy. You can ask a team of friends and family to bring meals and help prep food for your loved one. There are also meal delivery services that can make sure your loved one gets a well-balanced meal each day.
Your loved one may not need all of these services currently, but she may find she’ll need some in the future. Talking about them today will help you both be more prepared for what the future brings as she lives out her dream of staying home in her sunset years.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Skilled Nursing in Philadelphia, PA please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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