Is Your Parent Thriving in Home Care in Grand Rapids, MI? Knowing When to Make a Change
Making decisions regarding your aging parent’s ongoing care isn’t easy. There are many different options available, and each offers its own benefits. This means that finding the right type of care for your parent may require a little bit of trial and error. Many seniors express a strong desire to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, and maintain as much independence as they can throughout their later years.
To them, staying in their own home represents freedom and control over their own lives. Home care services can help your senior achieve his goal of staying in his own home while managing his physical and cognitive concerns by providing assistance in fulfilling day-to-day needs including bathing, dressing, mobility issues, eating, light housekeeping and medication reminders. For many seniors, this is an ideal arrangement that enables them to stay in their familiar surroundings for years, if not for the rest of their lives.
Not all seniors are alike, however. Home care services may not be appropriate for all seniors, even those who have expressed a desire to try this type of senior care arrangements. It is not always easy to tell what type of senior care arrangements might be most beneficial for your aging loved ones. This is because if your parent has never been in any form of elder care arrangement, there’s no real way of knowing how he will respond to each of the different options. All you can do is choose the one that sounds most appropriate initially and then evaluate how your aging loved one is thriving so you will now if a change needs to be made.
The first way of knowing whether a change needs to be made regarding your parent’s senior care is listening to his opinions openly. Without his in home care provider being present, discuss with your parent how he feels about the provider and the arrangement itself. You may be surprised to find out that your parent has changed his mind about wanting to say in his own home and would feel more comfortable receiving care in an assisted living facility. On the other hand, in issue with an individual provider may be modified simply by contacting the home care services agency and replacing that provider.
You must also be vigilant regarding the ongoing condition of your parent. Even if he seems happy with the provider and the arrangements of the been made, if it seems as though your parent is still coping with a variety of physical and cognitive challenges that are making his day-to-day needs progressively more difficult to fulfill, it may be time to consider that home care services may not be the appropriate option for him.
If you feel uncomfortable discussing the potential need to change senior care arrangements with your parent, don’t hesitate to contact the home care services agency and ask that they send a representative to evaluate your senior. It is often easier to explain the opinion of a person in authority than it is to express your own concerns when it comes to your loved one. What really matters is that you keep your aging parent’s quality of life, health and safety as your top priority when evaluating if he is thriving with home care services.
If you or someone you know needs help with home care in Grand Rapids, MI contact the caregivers at Gauthier Family Home Care. We provide quality and affordable home care for many disabled and elderly loved ones in our community. Call us at (616) 658-2300 for more information.
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