7 Tips To Choose The Right Home Attendant For Elderly Care Services
Don’t want to put your parents in homes for old age? These tips for home care for elderly people will help you choose a home attendant for elderly care services.
Sarika Panchi used to worry about the health and well-being of her old parents, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic started. However, after she subscribed to the elderly care services provided by Emoha™ Empower Plan it took care of all her worries and secured her parents’ well-being.
Emoha™ is a connected community of elders that helps the elderly stay in their homes for as long as they want and get energized in the love and affection that each member of the community bestows upon each other.
Emoha™ home attendants have different names and different roles. They include care partners, doctors, housekeepers, but one common desire that they all have is a deep passion to take care of elders.
Being so attached to our elders, Indians acutely feel the stress of ensuring that they have a good quality of life in their old age. For NRIs who live across the ocean and can only visit their parents once a year, it can be even more difficult to keep track of their old parents’ health and well-being.
The coronavirus pandemic has made it even more troublesome for those who live away from their parents and have to worry about their health from afar.
Whether you’re living with elders in your home or concerned about the elderly care needs of your family members who live far away, helping old people manage their health and lifestyle needs can be stressful, worrisome, and time-consuming.
Most Indians (and their parents) would prefer not to have to use private old age homes for their eldercare needs. Couple that with the fact that the old age home cost per month is too expensive for most middle-class Indians, and caring in-home for old people becomes the best option.
In this article, we provide some eldercare tips to help you understand the old age care needs of your elderly and infirm family members so you can start caring for older parents better and provide the elderly care services they need without losing your sanity.
Whether you’re taking care of parents yourself or are looking for the best home care services for the elderly in your absence, there are many factors you need to consider before choosing a home attendant for elderly care services.
Maintaining seniors’ health is perhaps the most important consideration of all, as it dictates the quality of life that your old parents will enjoy. Most of us would prefer to opt for taking care of the elderly in their own homes instead of putting them in an old age home with nursing care.
If your parents suffer from chronic ailments such as diabetes or heart disease or are prone to falls and injuries, you need to keep all these elder care tips in mind when choosing a home attendant for elderly care.
Here are some elderly care tips to help you safeguard the health of elderly relatives under your care and ensure you choose the best caretaker for old age care for their needs.
#1. Healthy Diet Customised For Seniors
It is extremely important to ensure that elderly relatives are fulfilling all of their nutritional requirements on a daily basis. As they can be extremely vulnerable and prone to illness, a healthy diet is paramount in ensuring that they continue to be as healthy and happy as possible.
Firstly, any diet for seniors should be low in fat and salt. Both dietary substances can slow down recovery from any illness if consumed in large amounts. Salt and fat are both absorbed into the blood and make circulation sluggish. Too much fat can also block the arteries.
A geriatric nursing care attendant should focus on making sure that the elderly get plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables to provide essential vitamins and minerals for tissue regeneration, as well as plenty of fiber to ensure that bowel action is regular.
In addition, care of elderly patients should include a personalized diet plan that takes into account any dietary restrictions or preferences they may have – such as a strict vegetarian diet – and also ensures they do not develop any nutritional deficiencies.
#2. Caring For Seniors’ Mental Health
If you’re taking care of old parents yourself, you would generally see to it that they get the mental stimulation and attention they need to prevent mental health problems such as depression and anxiety that many empty nesters are prone to experience.
The elderly care service that provides in-home nursing care for elderly parents should do all they can to make sure that your elderly relative is happy and comfortable in their surroundings, especially for stubborn elderly parents with dementia.
As the home attendant for the elderly is in control of their everyday life, establishing a routine can help to alleviate panic and stress and regularly checking on them and anticipating their mental health needs can help pre-empt and prevent mental health issues before they occur.
#3. Regular Medical Checkups
Your elderly home care service should encourage the senior in your care to get regular health checks to make sure that everything is functioning correctly. Any changes in health should be noted and checked out on a monthly basis.
Regular doctor home visits and dietician consultations will help create a routine, to offer your elderly relatives a level of comfort, and also lead to any illnesses and diseases being diagnosed very quickly.
This can significantly improve the long-term health and well-being of elders and alert you to anything that may need to be observed in the future.
#4. Regular & Gentle Exercise
Even if your elderly parents are not physically able to exercise on a daily basis, getting twenty minutes of gentle exercise two or three times a week will make them feel infinitely better than if they were to get no exercise at all.
If they have injuries that need tending, regular physiotherapy visits would help them maintain mobility and improve movement. If they are able to move of the house, activities such as gardening can also be considered as exercise and can improve health in the long term.
Encouraging them to start an online group yoga and meditation class will get the juices flowing, stretch out joints, alleviate stiffness and immobility and improve overall health.
#5. Establish a Daily Routine
One golden rule that most old people carers should follow is to establish a daily routine for their seniors. Routines are essential when you are trying to establish a bond with the elderly person under your care.
Repeatedly doing the same thing over and over can give an immense sense of comfort to a senior citizen because there is nothing unexpected thrown in to upset them.
For seniors with dementia, the frustration of not knowing what is happening in your own world can be extremely upsetting, but a routine can help to avoid it. The familiar can give seniors a sense that they have some sort of control over their lives and can be used effectively to this end by caregivers.
A good routine will have a stabilizing effect on the elderly person that the senior care services are caring for and afford them an immense sense of comfort, which will make the long term working relationship with them much happier and less stressful.
An effective routine can also make life easier for the senior citizen caretakers, but it is always based on mutual interests and compromise after getting to know the individual preferences of the elderly person they are caring for.
Regardless of how logical and effective your routine promises to be, you cannot have a hope of it succeeding if the senior repeatedly bucks and sabotages it. It’s important that the home care attendant builds trust before establishing a routine.
A healthy routine can give the private caregivers for the elderly a measure of control and cut out unnecessary stress without taking away the elderly person’s independence. It can take months for the elder care agency to build up an effective routine, so once it’s in place try not to deviate from it.
#6. Take Safety Seriously
If the elderly person that your elderly caregiver is caring for is mentally or physically disabled, the primary concern should be for their safety.
Caring for seniors with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can be very difficult as they do not have a sense of their own mortality and are mentally incapable of thinking through the dangers of any situation, nor are they open to logical reasoning.
Even if your elderly parent refuses assisted living, the senior citizen home care services can make all of the necessary amenities available to the senior in their care without exposing them to any danger. It is a lot like baby-proofing a room when you have a toddler walking around.
The elderly person may also be into wandering around if they are mentally handicapped. So avoid keeping any open heating devices, such as electrical fires, around because these can cause more trouble and destruction than they are worth.
However, ensure that a clean bathroom is available to them at all times, as well as an appropriate place to sit down in case they exhaust themselves. Ensure that your seniors are able to communicate with you or with their elderly healthcare service provider at all times to prevent falls and injuries.
The in-home care services for seniors will also help ensure that they are safe in their chair or bed, with the appropriate rests on either side of them to prevent slipping and falls.
For any old-age care services that provide 24-hour care for the elderly in their own home, safety in the care of geriatric patients is a 24-hour job and they must always take it seriously.
#7. Preventing Falls & Injuries
The elderly, as a collective, have an astonishing number of falls every year. This can be attributed to a variety of factors but is primarily a result of feeling and being unstable on their feet.
Their bodies are not agile enough to avoid falls and the repeated episodes could cause more harm than good. As elderly bones are more brittle than those of younger generations then they can easily be broken.
Dislocated and fractured hips are the bone break of choice for most elderly individuals and can be extremely painful and debilitating. As a result, you need to be aware of the hazard and prevent it before it happens.
As prevention is better than cure when it comes to elderly falls and resultant hospital trips, it may be wise to put preventative measures in place to head off falls before they occur.
Maintaining the safety and security of an elderly individual can be very difficult initially because no one has eyes in the back of their head. It can take a while to become used to their movements, habits and routines.
People in the latter stages of dementia may wander around and refuse to sit down. The first thing that you should do to prevent trips and falls is to focus on their immediate environment and remove all possible tripping hazards such as mats, rugs and loose carpeting to small objects in their home.
Finding A Home Attendant For Elderly Care
Caring for an elderly relative can be an extremely stressful process, especially if you choose to do it yourself. If you look after a relative and choose to take charge of the elderly nursing care, it is impossible to detach yourself from your family role as well as provide effective care.
As a result, you will have to deal with all of the emotions that go with caring for a disabled or ill relative. As it’s so hard to detach, you may well decide that you need elder care assistance in order to escape from some of the stress and pressure, especially if you have a full-time job.
In terms of senior care options, there are agencies for elderly home care like Emoha™ that can provide an experienced home attendant for elderly patients who need old age care at home.
An elder care agency like Emoha™ that provides home care for the elderly in their own homes, can offer affordable senior care for much less than the old age home cost.
They provide help for the elderly living at home that includes nursing care of elderly patients and services such as bathing, feeding and dressing old people who may be disabled or paraplegic.
Opting for senior citizen home care services can help you escape the more distressing elements of personal hygiene that are necessary for taking care of the elderly in your home.
Your home care attendant for elderly parents can go into their home at least once a day, usually to get them out of bed, bathe, and dress them, or you could choose an elderly companion care service that offers 24-hour nursing care for geriatric patients.
Emoha™ is one of the elderly care start-ups that provides an experienced and qualified helper for elderly people who will come into your home or your relative’s home as often as you wish.
Providing home care for the elderly in their own homes costs less and is much more beneficial and personalized than the care old age homes provide. Taking care of aging parents need not be stressful when you have a reliable home care attendant for the elderly who reports to you on their status regularly.
If you want to avoid old age home services for your loved ones and prefer old age home care services for taking care of elderly parents, learn more about Emoha™’s geriatric care services for the elderly at home in the video below.
Please note that home attendants are not part of Emoha™’s Empower Plan but you can avail of these services at an added cost and in select areas.
Emoha’s geriatric care services for the elderly at home
To purchase a subscription to Emoha™ Elder Care Plans, please connect with a SHECO Partner on the SHEROES app.
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