For many families, there comes a time when they must consider whether an ageing loved one needs help to continue to live at home. This need might also apply to an older adult recovering from an illness or operation, who needs help to maintain their independence.
The decision to consider home care for an ageing adult can be difficult, causing many families a great deal of stress and worry. However, it’s important to realise the signs that someone needs support; which can be just as essential for their emotional health as it is for their physical health.
Before they decide whether or not it is right to seek care for someone, they must talk to them and evaluate their needs with an eye on the future. Signs that indicate that it may be time to bring in help include: [break]
• Reluctance to leave the house
• Losing interest in meals
• Declining personal hygiene
• Missed appointments and social engagements
• Difficulty getting up and walking around
• Household bills piling up
• Losing track of medications
• Confusion when performing once familiar tasks
• Poor housekeeping
At River Garden Home Care, we realise that the burden of recognising the signs that an aging parent requires help with tasks of daily living often falls on families. Identifying and seeking care for a relative is not easy, and many families put off the decision to contact a care provider until a crisis occurs.
The pathway to finding the right care can be confusing to navigate, but families who realise that a parent requires help should start looking for care sooner rather than later. Often, an elderly adult will be reluctant to accept help from third parties, which can put pressure on families. Most families attempt to rally around an elderly relative in the short-term, but later learn that this is not a sustainable solution. We provide a wide range of supportive care services to ageing individuals to enable them to retain their daily routines safely and independently. The care we offer typically falls into two main categories:
1. Assistance with activities of daily living, which includes help with walking, transferring, washing, dressing, toileting, eating and communicating. These are the basic self-care activities that we all perform on a daily basis.
2. Assistance with instrumental activities of daily living, which includes help with driving or navigating public transport, meal planning and preparation, housework and basic home maintenance, shopping, and remembering to take medication. These are the activities that are central to independent living.
We offer a wide range of one-to-one services tailor-made to person’s needs, from one-hour visits right up to round-the-clock care that includes weekends and public holidays. Our services are flexible and adaptable, so families can request more, support as required.
We also cater for ageing adults with complex care needs arising from progressive, life-limiting conditions such as cancer and dementia. We realise that seeking care for an older adult with specialist care needs can be particularly worrying and stressful and it is for this very reason that we take the time to understand the needs of families who have found themselves in this position. By combining our in-depth knowledge of conditions of later life with our extensive practical experience of catering to the needs of individuals from a range of health and cultural backgrounds, we are uniquely positioned to provide attentive care to those with the most complex of care requirements.
To find out more about the services we provide, please call us on 020 8228 1118 or email info@rivergardenhomecare.co.uk.
Add Comment