How often do you find that you feel you have to keep doing it all as your senior’s family caregiver? Probably a lot more often than you’re comfortable admitting. The reality is that is not a situation that you can keep up with forever, so it might be time to consider home care services. But what can they do to lighten the caregiving load for you and your aging family member?
Keep Your Senior’s Home Clean
When your aging family member is facing big challenges in her life, she may not have the energy she needs to take care of even simple tasks like light housekeeping, laundry, and even preparing meals. Home care providers are able to tackle all of those tasks, which does so much for keeping your senior’s home clean and tidy. But there are other elements to this as well, because a clean home is also safer and more hygienic for your elderly family member.
Help Her with Personal Care Tasks
If personal care tasks like taking care of her hair, teeth, and grooming are getting difficult for your aging family member, senior care providers can help. They are able to confidently assist with these delicate tasks without making your senior feel bad for needing that help. This is an essential part of maintaining your elderly family member’s dignity and her independence, too.
Provide Transportation for Your Senior
When your senior is no longer able to drive, she may worry that she is never going to be able to go places anymore without being a burden on someone else. Home care providers can take over the task of driving for your senior whenever she wants or needs to go somewhere. And if she needs additional mobility help, like setting up her walker once she gets where she’s going, you’ll feel better knowing that she has that help.
Keep Your Senior Company
There’s a lot to be said for someone being able to just sit and talk with your aging family member for a few hours, too. All too often seniors find themselves spending more and more time completely alone. This leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness. It can eventually even lead to depression. Simply by having someone spend time with your senior when you can’t you are able to help her avoid those difficulties.
Ensure She Sticks to Her Routine
Many seniors rely on routines to ensure that they live the life they want to have. A solid routine supports things like sleeping well, getting enough to eat, and even making sure that your senior gets plenty of movement in each day. Home care providers understand that a routine is essential for your elderly family member’s mental health and they do all that they can to support her routines.
There are so many other ways that caregivers can help you and your elderly family member, too. As your senior’s needs change, the ways that they help both of you can also adjust to meet those needs.