Senior Living Facilities for Your Parents.
Soumya Nair
The dramatic growth and
development of the senior housing business and the recent trend of few
corporates flurried into this sector without much homework made me think of
introducing the senior living options.
Elders need love, care
and attention just as a child requires. But, due to the modern day living
conditions, it becomes difficult for the family members to make adjustments
amongst themselves. Also, caring for the elderly is a bit grueling and tricky.
Depending upon their physical status, most infirm elders need professional help
or nursing care round the clock. Fortunately, there are elder care homes that
provide care and protection to senior citizens who are vulnerable and need
help. Some of the important senior care services are:
Care at home:
Not all elders are
interested in moving out of their houses in old age. They prefer to stay in the
familiar environment of home and love staying among the memories they built
there over the years. Also, moving to new unfamiliar setting is something they dread,
due to poor health or financial restrictions. For such people care at home is
the best and we call it ‘as ageing in place’. Lot of home care agencies operate
in almost all cities and have programs to provide health care assistance to
those elderly people who need assistance at home. But the crux of the matter is
how qualified and experienced are these caregivers. You need to evaluate the
competency and practices of these agencies before you hire someone.
Senior citizen homes:
Old age homes bring an
aversion to many people because in earlier days, it is synonym of destitute
home. Over the past couple of years, this misconception changed after the
existence of well-run senior citizen homes. Today many people opt on their own
volition to spend their twilight years in a senior citizens home. With the growing age, people are not able to
do all of their daily chores, especially those related to outdoors, on their
own. They need help in buying groceries or for carrying out the banking
procedures. Public dealings of various kinds require agility of mind which
fades away with age. Thus, residences with assisted living facility help elder
citizen live on their own and also provide assistance wherever required.
Retirement living:
There comes a stage
in life when the people feel like giving complete time to themselves and to
leave the hustle and bustle of city life. They do not feel like staying bonded
or burdened with family responsibilities. The period of life after work is the
time when they can pursue what they actually loved but could not do so due to
family obligations. So, for such group of people, there is an option of
independent living too. Separate apartments, fully furnished in all possible
ways, with home assistants are designed to suit the lifestyle of elderly people
and on a meager rent, senior citizens can choose to stay there for as much time
as desired. So many such facilities are available in all our cities. Here the
promoters are not providing any care.
Care Home:
Care homes provide
with intensive nursing care to patients who need care and maintenance. This is an ideal option for highly dependent
patients. Few of the patients warrant more professional care and a team work
which cannot be provided in other settings. For example, People suffering from
acute dementia, Alzheimer's disease or critical ailments like cancer and stroke
require 24 by 7 support. Thus, these care homes are good option for keeping
highly dependent elderly people.
What sort of setting is suitable
depends on the patient’s condition and the care involved as well as on many
other factors. Foremost is the patient’s condition. Then comes family dynamics.
Lastly, the financial aspects. Many chronic conditions and thereby
interventions, cannot be managed in a home setting. If opt for a home setting
as a convenience, then it can result in in inferior care. Resulting in more
complications which could have been avoidable. Mostly patient’s with multiple
chronicity need close monitoring and care and is mostly possible in a care
home. Before selecting the care setting it is important to approach a social
gerontology expert for a counseling session where he can guide you through the
various care settings.
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