What is Home Healthcare and Do You Need It?
Help at Home for Seniors
Whether you or your loved one is an elderly senior or a medical recovery patient, there is one common challenge: How can you remain in the comfort of your own home?
Facilities, nursing homes, and senior care centers all have one thing in common, they feel institutional and impersonal. The fear of being “stuck” in one of these facilities is a real fear. In addition to the loss of freedom and independence, there is also the difficulties of loved ones who can easily visit, especially after COVID-19. The reasons add up to why many seniors today are looking for ways to remain in their own homes during their golden years.
But this brings up an opposite challenge. With physical pain, mobility issues, and all of the hassles of maintaining a household, how is it even possible to remain at home? People often ask, how can they find help at home? That is really the main need. Help at home, for daily lifestyle activities. Some seniors only need help with lifting, others cooking, and others would like a companion to be with them throughout the day. And many need someone to help them with their health, or at least serve as a connection between them and their physician or nurse.
How Home Care Health is Changing Senior Living
Home care health is revolutionizing how seniors are treated in their elderly years. For the past half-century, it was common for seniors to be sent to a “home”, typically a senior care home, nursing home or assisted living facility. These organizations are highly regulated, have staff, and provide services they would otherwise not have lived with the family. However, they can be extremely expensive, as well as detrimental to the feeling of dignity and independence that many elderly have. In addition, family members feel an awkwardness of dealing with their loved ones through an institution, rather than through the relationship and home they always knew.
What is in Home Health Care?
Home care can be a wide range of activities and services. This can range from everything from meal prep help to bathing, all the way to nurse-supervised care such as prescription drug assistance and physical therapy.
Essentially, home care health is where a professional, whether a house helper, to a recovery therapist, or to a physician comes to your home. It provides the benefit of remaining in your own home.
Home Nursing Care
An example of one of these services is home nursing care. This is where a nurse comes to a client’s home to administer nursing and medical care, often under the remote supervision of a nurse practitioner or M.D. Services can include immunizations, health checkups, testing, routine care, health advice, prescription drug sorting, and more. Some states have certain regulations on which activities can be administered. For example, in California, standard home caregivers do not provide these services, but a home nurse can in many instances.
Health Care Services at Home
In addition to nursing care, certain medical specialists can also visit clients’ homes. Whether it is a CNA, anesthesiologist, physical therapist, sports medicine specialist, dietitian, or any other medical professional, there is a wide range of health care services that can come right to your door, rather than you go to them. And often, a home care agency, in cooperation with your primary doctor, can coordinate all of this.
Medical Home Care
Often the distinguishing factor of medical home care vs. home care or caregiving is the direct supervision or visits by a trained and licensed medical professional. As you can imagine, if a medical professional, who is licensed to perform certain medical services, is also serving as a general caregiver, that home care can become quite expensive.
So a hybrid, of having a primary caregiver (who likely is not a medical professional, but simply trained in providing in-home caregiving) combined with brief visits by medical professionals as needed, is a much lower cost, and yet more effective way of having home care.
Home Health Physical Therapy
One of the most common medical services that can be provided at home is physical therapy. This is especially because many seniors and elderly are either recovering or maintaining the physical endurance needed for daily activities. Having a physical therapist come into the comfort of your own home has obvious benefits; . . . you do not need to get out and transport yourself to a facility. This is especially helpful if you are recovering from surgery, injury, or simply have mobility issues.
Of all of the medical services available for home health, physical therapy is likely one of the most useful and beneficial.
Home Helpers
Home Helpers are trained caregivers who can help seniors around the house, with simple daily activities that are routine and non-medical in nature. (1). These may include bathing, setting out tomorrow’s clothes, light cleaning, mail sorting, phone answering, and simple companionship. Other activities may include transportation help and joining together in a social activity.
A home helper, or simply caregiver, as they are called, is often the unofficial primary point person for a client’s life. They may be the main point of contact with family members and medical professionals. This is why it is essential to have the right trained caregiver who can take responsibility and is trusting.
The best way to find these helpers is through a home care agency. These are companies that have caregivers on staff, along with a supervisor. They can assess your schedule, budget, and needs, and find the right match for you.
Home Care Agencies Near Me
The best place to start, if you are living in a retirement community is to ask other residents.
But if you don’t have this luxury, or simply don’t know where to look, start with an internet search. Look for “home care agencies near me”, “home health company near me” or “home care companies”. As you are searching, look at how long they have been in business. It is helpful if they have been around longer than 20 years. In addition, look carefully at their client reviews. Are they real? Are they detailed enough to know what type of caregiving services they provide?
Also, look at how they handle “issues”. For example, if a caregiver was not a good match, what did they do to replace or trade them? How easy is it to adjust schedules, caregivers, and services provided?
Can they work with your physician? Can they communicate with your family members?
All of these are important questions to ask as you are considering home care agencies.
Is All-Day Care Needed?
A misconception is that homecare requires 24-hour caregivers. This is not the case. In fact, there is a wide range of schedules that a home care service can accommodate. Some are once a day for moringa, Others may be every other day. Some are evening meal prep, cleaning, and bathing schedules. You can create and decide on a schedule that works well for you.
Finding a Home Health Aides Agency
In addition, you may be looking specifically for home health agencies. These may be one in the same thing. However, they should have the ability and experience to work with and be a point of contact with your primary doctor or other medical professionals. They are aides that come alongside the elderly to help them both in health care and in daily life activities. Finding the right home health aide company starts with asking your doctor, or asking a general home care agency.
Nursing Home Agency
Some home care companies also serve as nursing home agencies. This means, they can connect you or your loved one with the right nursing home when needed. They often have special relationships and contacts needed to get you into nursing homes, which often have long waiting lists, or require referrals.
Do You Need Home Healthcare?
So when evaluating the choice of whether to go to a nursing home, assisted living facility, or remain at home and use home healthcare, the choice can be easy. Home healthcare, if managed properly, can save you a lot of money, compared with living in an institution of the facility.
In addition, the benefits of home healthcare are becoming more apparent. They are often found to be happier living at home. This is likely due to the familiarity of their surrounding, and no stress from enduing a move and change of surroundings. In addition, if the right companionship care is provided, they can enjoy it more than in their earlier years.
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About the author:
Mike Cutler writes on senior lifestyles elderly care, and homecare. Enjoying living in a multi-generational household, along with senior care are some of his passions. He lives with his family in Reno NV and enjoys going to the Sierra Nevada mountains for hiking and family activities.
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CITATIONS
- https://www.seniorsguide.com/senior-health/what-does-home-health-care-do/
