Old parents would naturally want to live with their families. But there are cases when they require assisted living because of severe health issues or other disabilities that come with age. For their best care, there are many home health care services out there that would ensure your parents are physically and emotionally taken care of. However, nothing beats the love, care, and attention parents get from their adult children. Either you are a home caregiver or an adult child looking to educate yourself on how best to assist your aging parents.
Assisted living communities and assisted living, in general, have become quite common around the globe. The following statistics provide the necessary idea about the facts associated with such a setting for the elderly.
- More than 1 million Americans live in some form of the senior community, and the numbers are expected to double by the year 2030.
- Demographics suggest that majority of the senior citizens are white females around the ages 85 and older.
- Currently, an estimated 70% of the people turning 65 years of age require assistance or long-term care.
- The estimations also suggest that the average stay of a senior citizen in assisted living residence has spanned to 22 months, after which they required a higher level of care.
Coming back to parents choosing to stay with their family instead of homecare residence, their adult children can invest in quality and experienced in-house home health care providers.
Before you decide to find the best home health care agency, you need to know about a few things to not get on board with a deceptive agency.
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How to Find the Best Home Health Care Agency?
Considering the matter’s sensitivity, anyone in their right mind would want to choose an in-home caregiving service that isn’t a scam scheme. So, what can you do to hunt the right one down?
- Get recommendations from your doctor, family, and friends. The safest and most accurate recommendations come from those who have already availed of these services and are within your friends and family circles.
- Understand the needs of the elderly in your home. You need to have a good idea about the kind of assistance they need. Once you have an in-depth knowledge of their ailments, limitations, and needs, only then will you be able to find the right in-home healthcare service for them.
- Create a budget. Once you have the requirements and your budget down, choosing the right agency will become significantly more comfortable.
- Finding and shortlisting the right agency. As point 1 suggests, ask around for recommendations. You can also reach out to the right communities and ask for their opinion. You can also search for home health care agencies near me to start shortlisting.
- Conduct telephonic and in-person meetings. Once you have a list ready, start calling and asking general questions regarding their services, charges, and whatnot. After you have weeded out the ones that don’t fit the bill. You can start conducting in-person meetings with the potential ones.
Bonus Tip: You can ask your senior members’ doctors and the concerned senior citizen communities about the right questions to ask the agency of your choice.
Now that you know how to find the one that can be the best in terms of service, long-term relationship, and budget – let’s move to the tips to equip you with the knowledge best most suitable to take care of the elderly in your home.
Short Guide to Taking Care of an Elderly in Your Home
Some things are inevitable, like our parents’ old age and the many ailments that come with it. Until we find the need to hire an in-home healthcare agency, we can try our best to handle them with the utmost care and affection.
So, what can you keep in mind?
Analyze Their Care Needs
This is the first and essential step to identify the extent of care your parents or the elderlies at home require. If you do not do a thorough assessment of the extent of their care, you are bound to be overwhelmed along the way. Without a proper assessment, you are bound to lose sight of the biggest picture as well.
How to remedy this? Create a daily, weekly, and monthly task to give you a clear picture of where you are headed. You can also track health improvements and decline over the period of each month.
Assess How Much You Can Handle Yourself
There is no shame in admitting that you may not be capable or have the threshold to meet your aging parents’ caregiving needs. You are also not expected to somehow push through because of your sense of responsibility. If anything, knowing your own limits is necessary to understand when it is time to hire assisted living services.
Stay realistic, do not sacrifice more than you can, including your relationships and other responsibilities.
Ask Others to Help
The load must be shared between your siblings and other family members. You cannot expect to carry the responsibilities of taking care of your old parents yourself. Of course, not everyone might have the same level of interest as you, but you can change your approach when asking to pitch in and help.
Seek Financial Support
When caring for the elderly, the expenses can add up and become a heavy financial burden to bear. One of the best ways to ensure that you do not end up exhausting your savings is to seek financial aid early on and devise a plan.
You can approach the government, run an online aid campaign, or a private benefits program. You can also choose to take either a paycheck or bear your parents’ expenses from the pension or funds they receive.
Don’t Neglect Yourself
In the process of caring for your aging parents, make sure you do not neglect yourself. You need as much care as anyone else. And if your health fails, how will you look after the ones dependent on you?
Hence, prioritize self-care and make sure you are treating yourself right. If you need a break and feel heavily burnt out, then take time off and rejuvenate.
Lastly
Taking care of your aging parents should never be a burden. As long as you know the right avenues to reach out to when the hour calls, you will be just fine. Remember to keep yourself first throughout the entire process.