Is Your Senior Avoiding Her Doctor?
There is an amazing amount of people who absolutely refuse to go to their doctor, even if they used to go in the past. There can be any number of reasons for this, but when the person who won’t go is your aging family member, you might feel some urgency in convincing her otherwise.
Start a Conversation with Your Senior
Home Care Drexel Hill, PA: Is Your Senior Avoiding Her Doctor?
Your very first step is to open up a conversation with your elderly family member. You need to get her to open up if she’s willing to do so. You can’t resolve what you don’t understand, and this might seem to be a black and white issue to you. Especially if your senior has health issues, your take on the situation may well be that she simply needs to go to her doctor.
Understand All of Her Reasons
This is going to entail really listening to what your senior is telling you. There’s almost always more to the situation than she just doesn’t want to go. She may have genuine anxiety about going to her doctor. This can be related to actual health issues she has or just a fear that she’ll find out she has new health issues. If she’s unable to drive any longer, she may be embarrassed to ask someone for a ride. There can be a million reasons she’s not excited about doing what she needs to do.
Remove the Obstacles You Can Remove
There might be some actionable solutions you can put in place for your senior. For example, if she’s embarrassed about asking for a ride, you can make home care providers available for transportation anywhere at any time. That makes a huge difference. If your senior is anxious about hearing bad news, you can talk to her doctor about that fear. Her doctor can do a lot to help relieve her anxiety as well.
You May Have to Revisit the Issue
As much as you try, though, you may find that you have to revisit the issue again at another time. You can’t always resolve everything in one conversation. Your elderly family member may need some more time to come to grips with the solutions you’re offering. She may even need some time to feel comfortable enough to get to the really nitty gritty reasons behind her refusal to go to her doctor.
Remember not to give your senior too rough a time about not going to the doctor. She may feel embarrassed or bad enough about not going and getting nagged at may make her feel worse. Try to approach the topic as positively as possible.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Care in Drexel Hill, 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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