Who Benefits Most From Home Health Care Services – The Senior Or The Family?

Home Health Care Services

There are many things in life that benefit one person but comes at the expense of another. Having home health care services for your elderly parent or spouse is not one of those things. It is usually an enormous benefit to both the aging person and all of their immediate family.

There may be a select few people who are truly happiest being in an institution such as a nursing home, a place where they can live without any involvement– entirely dependent on the facility’s staff to attend to their medications, meals, bedding, bathing and more. There are also those who require such intensive medical treatments that home health care services are neither practical nor even an option. However, the majority of seniors yearn to remain in their own homes, a place where they feel safe and a place where their familiar surroundings and possessions connect them to fond memories.

Whether you engage a caregiver for respite care or you opt for live-in caregivers, having a professional home care worker can provide your family member numerous benefits, including:

• Staying at home maintains a stable address and phone number, making it possible to receive those calls and visits from old friends and distant relatives.
• The caregiver provides only as much help as is desired or necessary, allowing your loved one to feel as self-sufficient as possible and more in control of their lives.
• Seniors assisted in living at home can focus more on family, friends, and memories. They have the opportunity to enjoy life, rather than feeling discarded, disconnected, and empty.
• If a senior has a pet, or enjoys the family pet, it can be heartbreaking to move into a nursing home. Whether a pet has been newly acquired, or it is aging alongside their masters, pets can greatly add energy, amusement, companionship, and stimulation to a senior’s life.
• Home health care services can provide seniors with more personalized attention and customized quality care than is ever possible in a nursing home.
• Seniors who have been hospitalized and need only temporary care often recover faster with home health care services than they would in a rehab center due to the positive energy, hope, and gratitude they feel in returning to the home they love.
• Sharing the load with an in-home caregiver can relieve your senior’s concerns that their care may be too big of a burden on you.

Home Health Care Services Provide Many Benefits To The Senior’s Immediate Family

• More discretionary time and the freedom to go out to activities with children or grandchildren, other family members, or friends– or simply to relax and be refreshed.
• Peace of mind when you aren’t home with your senior parent or spouse.
• The ability to work outside the home while knowing that your loved one is safe and cared for.
• The perspective of an unrelated, yet fully engaged and experienced person to assist in finding solutions to problems related to your loved one’s care and needs.
• The option to be involved in your loved one’s care, including choosing doctors and therapies that might not be available in a nursing home.
• Comfort in knowing that your loved one is as happy as possible, living in comfortable, familiar surroundings.
• Freedom to come and go from your family member without regard for institutional visiting hours.
• The ability to carry on daily activities while being available and present to share moments with your loved one, but handing over the the load of caregiving to a professional.