What are the Benefits of Senior Home Health Care
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Senior home health care keeps a family together. The greying of America means more than 45 million seniors (age 65 and older) require services. This number will significantly increase in the next 30 years. Many seniors cannot afford the high costs of assisted living and nursing homes. These businesses house seniors as they become more incapacitated from medical and mental health challenges. Seniors in these facilities are mostly separated from family members, especially those who are busy and out of town. Elderly facilities have set schedules with predetermined visiting hours. Family members must make an appointment or visit the facilities to spend precious time with elderly parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents.
Senior home health care solves this tragic situation by allowing seniors to live in the home they owned or shared with children, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren. These family members and others who do not live at the senior’s home can visit the home free of most restrictions. It is much easier to arrange a family get-together and special occasions with senior home health care. The seniors readily participate because home health professionals are available to help in any way. These family reunions are not so easily coordinated when seniors are contained in facilities with numerous restrictions.
Senior home health care provides additional companionship. Often family members are busy with work and other personal appointments. They do not have the time to spend extended periods with their senior loved ones. Working late nights or double shifts, obligations to children and ill family members demand that seniors lose precious one-on-one time. Home care aides can fill this void by helping seniors with daily household chores, trips to the mall, medical appointments, or just casual conversations in the confines of the home. Other family members should not feel guilty because home health aides are trained for this purpose. They are screened and trained to deliver quality customer service.
Home health aides possess amazing empathy for seniors and ensure that the senior gets quality care. It is common for seniors, home health aides, and family members to bond over time. Sometimes, home health aides are accepted as members of the extended family. They are invited to family reunions, weddings, graduations, and seasonal celebrations. Such friendship is less likely to happen at facilities where staff are busy with large numbers of seniors. It is more difficult to cultivate meaningful relationships between staff at nursing homes and seniors. It is even more difficult to develop relationships with nursing home staff and family members. The latter spend less time at these facilities and have limited contact during set visiting hours.
Senior home health care permits the senior to live independently for longer periods. The senior lives in a home like any other family member. The seniors and family members determine restrictions at home. Visitors come and go freely. Visits to neighborhood businesses function like any other healthy person. Medical and recreational activities are made possible with home health aides. Personal chores such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, financial activities, visits to the mall, and other recreational opportunities occur with the help of home care aides. Such freedom and use of personal time are gratifying to seniors and family members. The seniors spent their life working and providing for other family members.
Decades of sacrifices were made so their children could grow up healthy, enjoy a good education, and be gainfully employed. It is only fair that the seniors enjoy the fruits of their labor. Family members feel guilty that they do not have the time to make this possible. However, with home health aides, they can finally achieve this goal. Senior home care franchises advertise flexible schedules. Home health aides are available at any time of the day to temporarily fill in for family members. These services include the mundane such as doing dishes to more specialized tasks, such as administering injections and other types of medical care. The latter may include pain management, pill management, and physiotherapy.
Home health care can be tailored to the senior’s needs. If a senior has major medical issues that require specialized care, the home health franchise can assign medical professionals with a higher level of medical expertise. Home health franchises are staffed with registered nurses, home health aides, mental health specialists, and physical therapists. Care is closely coordinated with supervising doctors. Such continuity and consistency in medical services are consoling to family members and seniors. The various needs of the seniors are satisfied because home care franchise administrative staff are trained to respond as such. The staff also carefully screens the medical professionals that they send to the homes of seniors.
Screenings may include background checks against the FBI database for past criminal activity and child abuse. Random drug tests ensure that no staff member assigned to your home is under the influence of narcotics. Family members and seniors can rest assured that their valuables, children, and other loved ones will be safe because home health professional is thoroughly screened. This is particularly relevant when seniors have dementia and Alzheimer’s. Seniors who are mentally incapacitated are unable to make sound judgments. Home health aides practice high ethical standards and protect seniors from financial predators.
Many families and seniors cannot afford the costs of assisted living facilities or nursing homes. The seniors did not save enough money, and social security and Medicare benefits are not enough to pay for even a semi-private room at these facilities. Many facilities close because seniors cannot afford their costs. A semi-private room often costs more than $25,000 per year. This is just the cost of housing. When medication, surgery, clothing, and other costs are tagged on, families already struggling to cover household bills become unsustainable. Home health care is much cheaper for seniors. A home health care franchise can work with the family to only administer services that they can afford. The result is families that share senior care with the franchise and so balance the household budget.
