Helping seniors is incredibly rewarding work. But it can also be incredibly difficult. If the senior in question is close to you –a parent, grandparent, close friend, etc.– then your investment in their wellbeing is magnified. You care a lot and want to do what’s best for them. But can you provide all the help yourself? Sometimes, maybe you can. But not often and not for long. The truth is, a systematic approach to senior care is the best possible approach. And seniors deserve the best care they can get so, therefore, they deserve a systematic approach to their care.
Why you can’t do it alone
Many seniors are reluctant to accept (and even more so to ask for) help. Aging is difficult for all of us. We didn’t want to admit it took us longer to recover from our softball league games at 35 than it did at 25. Imagine how hard it must be to accept that you can’t mow the lawn any more. Or that you need help using the bathroom. Partly for this reason, many of us are hesitant to broach the subject about hiring a care worker to help our elderly parents and family members. Not to mention the fact that many times people think they should be able to look after their parents on their own.
But in the vast majority of cases, this just isn’t practical. How can you expect to work a job and look after your own children and family as well as be there for your elderly parent or parents whenever they need? Not to mention things like taking care of your own home, running errands, paying your taxes, etc. And forget about having a social life or watching your favorite TV shows. It’s too much of a burden on you, and what parent would want that for their child?
But most of all, you just can’t provide the best care for seniors who need a little (or a lot of) assistance. It’s not your job. You’re not a trained professional. Can you construct a detailed plan of care? Can you work with registered nurses to do it? Can you keep track of all the things with which your senior parents need help? And how that changes over time? No, probably not. In short, one person cannot deliver a systematic approach to their parents’ care.
Systematic approach
By systematic approach, we mean a methodical, detailed, tried and tested approach to senior care. A systematic approach to senior care doesn’t mean winging it and just hoping for the best. It means using data and experience to figure out the best way to help seniors in their daily lives. It means knowing which conditions are likely to get worse and from which conditions we can expect seniors to recover.
It means developing a detailed plan of care with the help of a registered nurse and executing that plan professionally and precisely. But it also means being flexible and changing plans as needed. In short, a systematic approach means skilled care workers using the knowledge of nurses and their own experience working with seniors to develop and deliver a systematic approach that is carefully designed to benefit them personally.
Executive Home Care
Executive Home Care uses a systematic approach in our delivery of senior care. To learn more, please contact us today.