Home Health Care Family

As people age, their health care needs tend to move from wanting to live as long as they can to focusing on the quality of their life. In other words, senior health care becomes all about quality over quantity. Sadly, there are times when the medical treatment our seniors receive doesn’t’ reflect this change in their priorities.

Senior Health Care in America

According to the Dartmouth Atlas Project, there are five primary areas where seniors tend to receive treatments that do not meet their needs or the established guidelines. Two of the five areas relate to preventive care that doesn’t necessarily benefit senior citizens, including screening for prostate and breast cancer. The other three areas revolve around end of life care, such as time spent in an intensive care unit and late hospice care referral.

Each of these measures highlights the need for improved communication along with shared decision making between patients and their families when it comes to the senior’s needs and home health care for seniors.

Is It Time to Consider Senior Home Health Care Services?

Before it even gets to the point where a senior can no longer live on their own, there needs to be improved and open communication between that person and their family, especially regarding senior health care. There may come a time when your loved one requires the assistance of home health care services. Healthcare professionals are better positioned and experienced to devise the right care guidelines to ensure the person’s quality of life is the best it can be.

So, how can you decide when it is time for home health care for seniors?

6 Ways to Tell If It’s Time for Professional In-Home Assistance

It may be time to consider home health care for seniors when your loved one:

  • Ceases to prepare full meals, claims they aren’t hungry, or is living on TV dinners
  • Forgets to pay the bills on time
  • Allows their hygiene habits to slip
  • Starts to limit contact with friends and family and avoids group situations
  • Grows fearful of driving or stops driving altogether
  • Confuses medication or forgets to take their medication

What’s more, you may need to call on senior home health care services if:

  • You feel you are putting your own life on hold to maintain the quality of your loved one’s life
  • You live too far away to get to your loved on in an emergency
  • You are feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and isolated taking care of your senior family member
  • Struggle to lift your loved one or maneuver him or her
  • Lose time at work owing to your caregiver responsibilities
  • Feel stressed out and guilty, as though you are not doing enough for your family member

Senior health care is the ideal solution. Your loved one can maintain his or her quality of life in their own home, surrounded by all their comforts, while receiving professional assistance and guidance and a personalized care plan that suits their specific needs. Home health care for seniors will ensure your loved one receives the necessary assistance and care required, while eliminating unnecessary or irrelevant treatments.