subject: Getting Professional In-home Care For Your Elderly Parents [print this page] As people get older, they are in dire need of health care. Bones are getting weaker and other health issues arise. Some children may think about putting their loved ones in nursing homes; some will keep their elderly parents in their own home to take care of them and some will think about getting home health care for their parents. You have to evaluate your situation to see what is best for your parent.
One thing is certain, if you are to choose a nursing home, make sure you research it in advance, be sure that is what your parents would want and make sure it is close in proximity to your home so you can visit regularly. If you were to keep your parents in your home, be mindful that it is like taking care of a child and will require a lot of your time. If you have a full time job, then this will be a challenging task. If you or your parents prefer to stay in the home that they have known for many years, then you can think about hiring a company that provides in-home health care services for the elderly.
These home health care service providers offer private nursing to families who need that extra assistance to care for their loved ones. If you are looking for a career as an in-home nurse, you would be providing a well needed service for so many seniors who want to keep their independence and privacy to some extent by staying in their own home regardless of what their children think.
These in-home nurses are very professional and are reliable caregivers to the elderly. They will make sure that your loved ones are fed properly, get their medications on time, accompany them on their visit to the doctor and even go grocery shopping for them.
If you are in limbo about what to do with your aging parent, you might want to think about hiring a home healthcare agency to assist you. However, before you make that big decision, you have to carefully consider if you can afford it for the long term, how involved you will be in the process, what is the reputation of the caregiver (agency) and how professional are they.
Home healthcare can be expensive. However, there are some elderly parents who may have saved enough money to take care of all the medical aspects and continual care that they will need. In most cases, though, this is not so. Therefore, you have to take a keen look at your budget and what you are able to spend on this. Visit the agency and talk with one of the personnel to find out what they can do to help you with this.
It might work best for you to start off with the home health service agency for a couple of years until you are able to take over from them and provide care for your elderly parents. The sicker your parents may become, though, is the time when you may need the most help from the agency. So you might have to do the caretaking initially until you can longer cope and then call in the home healthcare specialists.
You can also try to get part-time help from the home healthcare agency if you have other members of the family who can chip in and help. For example, if you have a sister who works part time or works late shifts and a brother who works on opposite shift from the sister, you can have both of them alternate the care of the parents and you provide what help you can give. The home healthcare service provider would, then, work only a few hours to cut your cost down.
You also have to weigh the situation to see if your parents can be probably left by themselves until someone comes home from school or work. How mobile are your parents? Can they still prepare their own meals and keep their schedule for taking their medication? What about possible getting help from high school grandchildren? You also dont want other family members or even yourself to feel drained from taking on such a tremendous task because then you will be stressed out and become resentful.
As much professional help that you can get, it will be better for everyone in the family and then you can all enjoy the last number of years that your elderly parents have instead of thinking of it as a chore. For more information please Visit: www.aaatlc.com
