Knowing When Your Senior Family Member Needs Home Care Assistance

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how to know when a senior family member needs home care assistanceAs your senior family member (your spouse, mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, and uncles) age, they may need home care assistance. If you are the caregiver to one or more of these individuals, it may be up to you to determine when additional care is needed. You can make this determination by doing a care assessment on the individual.

When doing a care assessment, there are three things you need to consider.  You’ll need to think about the physical, mental and emotional, and medical needs of your loved one.

Let’s take a look at each and the types of questions that come to mind when determining whether or not your senior family member needs additional assistance in their home.

Physical Needs

  • Have your loved ones ability to care for themselves diminished?
  • Has cleaning their own home become difficult for them?
  • Are they eating right? Can they still cook for themselves? Have they lost weight?
  • Are they having trouble bathing and dressing?

Mental and Emotional Needs

  • Has the family member become confused or forgetful?
  • Has the individual become solitary and now seems to be isolating themselves?
  • Have they taken the wrong dosage or forgotten to take their medication?
  • Are they withdrawn or depressed?
  • Do they seem afraid or secretive?
  • Are they receiving large quantities of junk mail? Catalogs? More purchases than usual?
  • Are their bills getting paid on time?
  • Have you noticed unusual bank activity? Or unknown people expecting and accepting money from the individual?
  • Have items that were special to the person disappeared from the person’s home? Are they unable or unwilling to discuss where these items are?

Medical Needs

  • Have they recently been injured or ill and needed hospital care?
  • Are they sometimes confused and need help with their medications?
  • Do they need physical therapy?
  • Are they visually or hearing impaired?
  • Do they have trouble walking? Use a cane, walker, or wheelchair?

If your own health holds up, you may find yourself in a caretaking role when you are a senior. Your siblings and friends may need someone (like you) who will step in and get them the help they need. You will have to intrude in the person’s life if you see signs that alert you to problems that might cause the loved one injury or put them in danger.

You can also take a proactive approach. Talk to your friends and family before you see any signs of trouble and each of you choose a person to oversee each other’s care should the need arise. In most states, you will need to appoint a person to be responsible for health care decisions and one for financial decisions if you are unable to care for these issues on your own.

Last but not least, your specific situation may require home care.  There are a number of different agencies that provide these type of services to clients in your area.  Reaching out to a professional home care agency can allow you or your loved one, to stay in your home rather than live in a care facility like a nursing home or retirement community.

 

Photo Credits: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Razor: Grant Cochrane

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About Pam Witt

Pam Witt is a licensed RN and has more than 32 years of experience in the caregiving, home care, home health and healthcare industries. She has more than 10 years of successful marketing experience with one of the largest healthcare software companies in the world. Pam’s philosophy is that “life is a gift” and it should not be wasted. Pam’s main objective through the NAPHC and ProfessionalHomeCare.org is to make a positive impact in the home care, home health and home hospice industry by providing the best information and training available.

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