Let’s face it, personal care for seniors can be . . . awkward. It can be awkward to help seniors with certain tasks; awkward for them and for the person helping. And it can be awkward to even broach the subject. But many seniors need personal care to live safely, healthily, and happily. If you think that your senior parent can benefit from senior care, you have to find a way to discuss it with them. Here are some tips on how to help your senior parents with personal care.
Learn About Personal Care for Seniors
If you suspect that your senior parent or an elderly loved one is need of or could benefit from personal care, you should first learn about personal care for seniors as much as you can. Who is it for? What can personal caregivers do for seniors? Can seniors receive personal care in their own homes?
Personal care is designed to help seniors with the activities of daily living. These activities include all the tasks that we all do everyday to take care of ourselves. Tasks such as bathing, dressing, using the toilet, eating, and walking. For any senior who struggles with any of the aforementioned tasks, personal care is probably required.
Personal Care Services
Personal care services for seniors include:
- Assisting with eating, bathing, using bath equipment, dental/denture care, grooming, and hair care
- Assisting with bowel regularity, self-administered medications, basic skin care and nail maintenance
- Emptying or changing external urinary collecting devices, including catheter bags
- Providing colostomy care and emptying ostomy bag
- Assistance with urinals, bedpans and/or commodes
- Providing bowel and bladder incontinence care
- Encouraging seniors to perform normal body movements and to follow prescribed exercise programs
- Assisting with positioning in bed, wheelchairs, and other chairs
- Assisting with transferring to/from bed, wheelchair, toilet, and chair
Personal care services can also be combined with companionship services and homemaking services.
How to Start Personal Care for Seniors
If you think a senior in your life is in need of personal care, you will have to talk to them about it. You need to know if they are really struggling with their own basic care. This can be difficult to do because many seniors don’t like to show that they are struggling. They might tell you that they can manage. But you need to get to the truth of the matter. It is often best to speak honestly and frankly.
Of course, for many of us, our first impulse when we learn that a senior loved one is struggling with something is to help them ourselves. But that is not always possible. Can you really be there to help your senior loved one out of bed every morning and into bed every night? Probably not. Furthermore, there are some tasks with which you probably don’t want to help your senior parent nor would they want your help. Many of these personal care services are, well, personal. Personal and sensitive. Certified personal caregivers can make sure that personal care services are delivered in the most dignified, effective, and cost-efficient manner.
Contact us
You can get all of the above senior personal care services delivered in-home. And the first step in doing so is to contact Executive Home Care.