One of the biggest decisions that a senior’s family members will ever have to faceon their behalf is the question of whether or not to send them to a nursing home. This is a valid question, but it is important to remember that there are middle ground options between doing everything yourself and sending a loved one to a nursing home. This post looks at some of the differences between a nursing home and care provided by a professional in the home.
Surroundings
It is difficult to overstate the positive effect of comfortable and familiar surroundings. It is not uncommon for a senior to have lived in the same house for fifty years or more, creating a familiarity with the residence and its layout that can simply never be recreated in a nursing home. This provides an emotional comfort, by having all of your knick knacks and belongings in the places you put them around your own house, but it also gives a practical and physical comfort just from knowing the terrain of the house. This can become a safety factor if the senior in question is prone to slips and falls, where an intimate familiarity with the walls and floors can help prevent that. As well, a nursing home can be a potentially frightening place, filled with the beeps of medical machines and the unpredictability of the other patients.
Constant Care vs. Enough Care
There is a big difference between receiving constant care and receiving the right amount of care. Constant care can be smothering or, to some people, possibly even demeaning, if they are still capable of doing many things on their own. Yes, there may come a time when a person requires the absolute security of having caregivers around 24 hours a day, and that is of course where nursing homes shine. But for many, many seniors, a caregiver that comes in during the day, helping with some of the more difficult of their daily tasks and simply spending some time with the patient, is completely adequate. The independence that this provides can in turn help maintain mental health and prevent the onset of dementia.
One on One Time
Even seniors who need only specific types or small amounts of care still benefit enormously from the one on one time that comes naturally out of the circumstances of in-home care. Nursing home caregiving staff, though they do wonderful and important work, are forced to spread themselves among a large number of patients, as well as reorient themselves for each patient every time they enter a new room. In-home caregivers, on the other hand, spend hours at a time with just one patient, creating an emotional connection as well as simply giving the caregiver the experience and knowledge necessary to give that patient a specific and personalized type of care.
Contact Us
If you would like to learn more about in-home care and the possibilities available to you and your family, please contact us.