Home Care: An Excellent Alternative to a Nursing Home

Home care is the ideal solution if your elderly parent needs special care but refuses to give up his/her home for a life in a nursing home.

Home care aides will help the individual handle their regular activities. Your elderly parent may need help to visit the toilet, take a bath and get dressed. A trained nursing care aide can help a senior complete activities that were once second nature, but now seem overwhelming.

Elderly woman with flowersBut those aren’t the only ways that an aide can help. Many professional caregivers will also help with keeping the senior’s residence clean by handling tasks such as sweeping, dusting, mopping and doing the laundry. Assisting with things such as shopping trips or traveling to meet with friends or other appointments can be included in the list of job duties for the aide.

If your loved one has any unique dietary needs, the home care agency can find an aide that’s qualified to prepare these meals. Any doctor’s orders regarding meals will be followed and the aide will also serve the meal.

But the senior parent needs more than someone to chauffeur them around, clean their house and dress them. The availability of another human being to talk to can make all the difference in the individual’s health, both mental and physical. The elderly person can gain so much from the aide’s act of just listening and responding in a caring way. Promoting the simple act of human interaction is most likely the most useful thing you can do for your senior relative.

While the aide converses with the patient, they can also monitor their condition and daily activity, and make notes regarding same. These records are instrumental in the senior’s treatment and can be a great reassurance to their worrying children. The caregiver can report any changes in the senior’s activity to the physicians and relatives immediately.

By law, the home care aide is barred from engaging in any services that could be described as ‘skilled nursing’. If your parent is in critical condition and needs skilled medical help at their residence, you should look into registered nurses and other medical providers. Conversely, if your parent is not afflicted with such an extremely serious condition, the aide’s assistance with companionship, medication and meal timing, and other activities can surely be a boon.

Assisting the elderly in maintaining some freedom while dealing with their physical condition is what home care agencies do. Today, more seniors than ever before are choosing to live on their own, away from their children and families. The right care, in their own home, makes this dream a reality.

Life threatening diseases excepted, your senior relative should be able to remain out of a skilled nursing facility and maintain their preferred way of life in their own home by utilizing home care.

Any home care aides secured via an agency will be duly licensed, accountable, and received all required training. Any qualms you might feel when trusting the care of your senior parent to someone possibly located many miles away can be assuaged when you know they’re fully qualified and properly trained. Even though you can’t be there on a regular basis, you can breath a sigh of relief that they’re being well taken care of.

Selecting an individual to provide home health care begins with an evaluation of three things: your parent’s individual needs, their state of health, and their life circumstances. Services are tailored if the senior suffers from diabetes or incontinence. Visiting the agency personally is a good idea if possible.

Calling to set up a visit with the agency is a great idea. Then you can proceed with full confidence to select the right aide for you and your parent. At this time of their life, could you give them any greater gift than this?

In the Miami-Dade area, contact Miami Home Care Services at (305) 534-5055 to find trained, screened and compasionate home care aides for your elderly parent or loved one.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit