How Can You Figure out How Much Help Your Loved One Needs?

By Jamie Shapiro | September 8, 2016 | Comments Off on How Can You Figure out How Much Help Your Loved One Needs?

Senior Care in Glenview ILSenior-Care-in-Glenview-IL

It can be difficult to know when hiring senior care providers for your elderly loved one is really what she needs. One of the best ways to do this is to fully assess how much help and care your loved one requires.

Assess the Type of Situation You and Your Loved One Are In

If your elderly loved one is in relatively good health and is comfortably mobile, she’ll have different needs than she would if she were just being discharged from the hospital after surgery. So it’s important to start out with the situation that your loved one is currently in. Your own health can factor in here, too. If you’re not doing as well as you’d like, that can impact your loved one’s care greatly.

Make a List of Necessary Equipment

Are there any equipment needs that your loved one has? This could be anything from a hospital style bed to oxygen concentrators and everything in between. Some of the help you might need with equipment could be someone to deliver and assemble the equipment, someone to teach you and your loved one how to use it, or even someone to administer treatments with the equipment regularly.

What Can Your Loved One Do?

If your elderly loved one is still healthy and mobile, there’s probably quite a bit that she does for herself daily. As the family caregiver, your role may be more along the lines of someone to talk to and someone to keep an eye out for your loved one. If your loved one has other issues, however, she may require more assistance from you and even from other people.

Look for Safety Concerns

The more alert you are for safety concerns, the more quickly you can resolve them. Your loved one’s safety can range from general safety around the house, such as tripping hazards, to safety in the kitchen while cooking. Develop a checklist that helps you to go through your loved one’s home and care needs regularly and quickly so that you can spot and correct safety issues right away.

Assess Your Own Schedule

Another key factor in this decision involves your own schedule and obligations. When your schedule is lighter, you can likely handle being on call more often for your elderly loved one. On the other hand, when you’re extremely busy in many other areas of your life, you may have to hand over some of those responsibilities in order to help your loved one. In some situations, you might even need home care providers to step in as your substitute temporarily.

This may be something that you’ll want to do regularly, just to make sure you’re still meeting your loved one’s needs.

If you or an aging loved one are considering senior care in Glenview, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.

Jamie Shapiro
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