Personal care is a popular form of senior care. Is it right for you? Is it right for the senior in your life? What exactly does “personal care” mean and what kinds of services does it consist of? This article will explain personal care, what it entails, and some of its many benefits.
Personal Care For Seniors
Many elderly people require senior care of some kind. Some receive homemaker services to help them look after their homes. Others receive companionship services to help them maintain good mental and emotional wellbeing. And then some seniors need personal care. Many seniors receive one of these other types of care before they require personal care, but many will come to a point where personal care is necessary for them to live safely.
Many elderly people need personal care services because they struggle to perform the activities of daily living by themselves. “Activities of Daily Living” is a term we use here at Executive Home Care to denote the activities that we all need to perform every day in order to take care of ourselves. These are activities such as brushing your teeth, brushing your hair, bathing, using the toilet, and eating. If you can’t do these things for yourself, you’re not going to have a very high quality of life. Personal care is necessary for seniors who struggle with these activities.
In-home Personal Care For Seniors
Many seniors move into senior care facilities, such as nursing homes or assisted living communities, in order to receive personal care. And many seniors are happy in such environments. Other seniors would rather refuse care than to move into such a community. They’ve grown attached to their own home and they don’t want what may be their final years on earth spent in a place they don’t feel comfortable. Thankfully personal care can be provided to seniors in their own homes. A caregiver can come by as often as needed to provide personal care to seniors. Under the right circumstances, you can arrange to have a caregiver live in the home with the senior to provide personal care services whenever required.
Personal Care Services
What kind of personal care services can be provided to seniors in their own homes? Well, a lot of different services, in fact. Services such as:
- Companionship Service and Homemaking Service
- 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 to perform normal body movements and to follow prescribed exercise programs
- Assisting with positioning in bed, wheelchair and other chairs
- Assisting with transferring to/from bed, wheelchair, toilet and chair
Something to consider: getting personal care for your elderly loved one can be a rough adjustment, but it can be a lot easier if the senior in question is already used to receiving elder care. Even if your elderly loved one doesn’t currently need personal care, arranging for homemaker services or companionship care now might prove fruitful in the future.
Executive Home Care
To learn more about personal care for seniors, please contact us.