For example, people who have memory impairment begin to lose track of time and are not able to identify when a day begins and when it ends. Consequently the person tends to stay in the same clothes as there is no break in the day. Others are able to identify it is night and change into bed clothes but then when they arise they go right back into the same clothes they had on for last three days. Caregivers become frustrated saying, mom has 20 outfits right in her closet but she won’t put them on, she wants to wear the same thing all the time.
If you have a person with memory impairment, 20 choices is too much and overwhelms them. They get frustrated trying to pick out which top goes with what pants, colors are difficult to see if they have vision problem and the complexities of having to put something together is unmanageable to them. People with memory impairments often need cueing which is when you tell them, put your arm in this hole, then bring the shirt around your back and then your other arm in this hole. You have to direct them how to do it. These are simple steps to a person with well brain but for someone suffering with memory impairment and even the disease of dementia, it is an overwhelming task. When confronted with an overwhelming task, all humans either just don’t do it or they try to do what is most comfortable, i.e. wear the same thing.
One thing you could do is cut down on choices. Give your loved one maybe 3 choices a week or 2 depending on their memory impairment and if they live alone. Giving limited choice often helps them and saying, mom this is your outfit for tomorrow we are going to doctor can help. Put a note on the garment and hang in on the door they always look at like the bathroom or closet. Take it out of the mix of several outfits and set it by itself. If you have a caregiver who comes in or its you, have that person take the outfit out of the closet and say this is so pretty, I bet you would look handsome in it, how about if we sponge bath or shower and change into this outfit?
Dealing with changing clothes is a tricky business. Be careful about making up stories or lying to your loved one because if he or she is having a lucid moment and catches you in the lie, it can backfire on you. Be upfront and just tell you loved one that clothes can only be worn for two days and if they are in agreement keep track via a calendar and say it’s so I know when the wash needs to be done. My schedule is busy and keeping track of your laundry will help me to know when I need to stay a little longer for washer to run. Be creative and think of ways to get them to change clothes. Life is an art not a science. There is no easy fix for this refusing to change clothes behavior.
]]>The term long distance was applied many years ago to our phone system and was used for calls that were considered out of the area. It also implied that if you were making a long distance call, you could not quickly get to the person you were calling. Nowadays, a long distance caregiver is in the same situation, the caregiver cannot quickly get to the elderly person they are helping.
]]>The term long distance was applied many years ago to our phone system and was used for calls that were considered out of the area. It also implied that if you were making a long distance call, you could not quickly get to the person you were calling. Nowadays, a long distance caregiver is in the same situation, the caregiver cannot quickly get to the elderly person they are helping.
This makes for much stress and often worry in regards to the health and safety of the elderly loved one. Not being able to jump in the car to go and check on mom or being able to swing by on a regular basis can result in increase worry over eating habits, sleeping increase or decrease, memory impairment progression and other physical illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure or heart problems.
Long distance caregivers need to find someone close to the person such as family member, neighbor or even paid caregiver to go in and visit with the elderly loved one. During this visit, the person should take note of whether the person is eating, by looking casually around the kitchen, clues such as food decreasing in the refrig and cabinets probably means they are cooking it, containers in the trash show they ate something, the dirty dishes in sink may also clue you in if there is movement in the kitchen.
Keeping on an eye on such things as body odor, house odor - is there a smell of urine?, changing clothes, is laundry filling up? and other clues will help to know if the person is bathing or not. The visitor can be very casual when looking around taking notes in his or head about what they see and then reporting it back to you.
If your loved one has pills in bottle, the pills should be decreasing. One time I went to see a client who lived alone and said she was taking her pills as prescribed. I asked if I could see the name of the medication, she said sure. When I picked up the full bottle it was dated a month ago and the pills were to be taken 3 times a day. Clearly she had not taken any of them or was taking sporadically. Pill boxes can cause problems too as people with memory impairment can take the wrong days of the week, forget to take pills or mix things together.
If you have a person who is willing to check in on your loved one, ask him or her to look for signs for eating, sleeping, changing clothes, medications and even driving issues. Ask them to call you with concerns so that you can be aware of changes that are taking place. This will enable you to know that you need to pay a visit sooner than you thought or more frequently.
]]>It usually starts out slow with you noticing mom struggling either physically or cognitively with daily things such as paying bills, missing meals, not cleaning the house, maybe an illness comes upon the person that slows him or her down and so on. At that time you usually start to collect your data about what is going on and you begin to address the needs as they come up. The needs are often minimal, do not require much of your time and frankly you like doing it because you want to help your loved one.
Then one day the caregiving begins to take on a life of its own. Usually the caregiver first notices it during the time of a crisis. The elderly loved one falls or goes into hospital for surgery, maybe has very bad flu or pneumonia at home and gets weak. The caregiver starts to go over the home more, be attentive to the person’s needs and finds that the caregiving becomes overwhelming at times trying to balance helping the elderly person and taking care of his or her own family.
The crisis time is overwhelming and it is the first realization of what full time caregiving is, but the caregiver knows that the crisis will end, the elderly person will go back to his or her level of functioning and everyone’s life goes back to normal.
But what is normal? Normal is that sense of reality that we live everyday. If I am single than normal to me is having a date, eating alone or going out with friend. Normal for married life is having dinner with spouse and life together. In other words normal is the reality in which we live. For caregivers, normal can be going over to mom’s one time a week to pay bills, get her groceries, etc. When a crisis hits, normal changes but when the crisis is over our expectation is we will go back to normal.
But what happens over time when normal starts to change? It happens to all of us. Again if I am single and normal is a date or dinner with a friend but then I get married normal then changes. If I start taking care of mom and I go one time of week and that is normal but a stroke happens and mom is now paralyzed on one side, my normal has now just permanently changed.
What caregivers don’t realize is that they never really adjust to normal after the crisis. When you are single and you get married, you end up adjusting to this new life where you are now partnered with someone and the expectation is you will do things together, help each other maybe raise kids together. We go into that with wonderful and hopeful expectations that our feelings will be positive. No one goes into caregiving for an elderly person with the expectation that we will do things together - as a result of the caregiving, no one goes into the caregiving relationship with the expectation that we will partnered, joined at the hip, enjoying this new found time we have together. Now please don’t hear this wrong. You may have a wonderful relationship with an elderly loved one and yes, you may feel that caregiving gives you that extra time to spend with that person that you might not have had. I am not talking about that.
I am talking about the relationaship between a caregiver who starts out with good intentions of helping and ending up in a very challenging dysfunctional marriage to their elderly loved one. See over time the relationship that started out as me feeling good cause I could come once a week to pay bills turns into mom calling me and asking why I can’t come over that day. The normal feelings that I have experience of going over when I planned or can turns into a dependency that gets ugly and stirs up alot of old feelings, resentments and other such history between us.
For example, a mother who had a rocky relationship with daughter can be at first thankful that the daughter helps out. But as soon as the aging process takes over, the brain starts changing, maybe a memory impairment starts, that same mother can turn hostile and demanding often exhibiting old behaviors of being demanding and controlling on her children that they rebelled against as kids. The children who are now the caregivers start reacting to her behavior, the same way they did as children. This starts a boatload of feelings in the caregiver that they sometimes cannot express because they realize it does no good. Mom is always right, she will just deny it, she always has. So a new caregiving relationship that started out one time a week with the caregiver feeling okay or good about hellping out now starts to turn to dysfunction. What was once normal is now a new normal. What was once feelings of okay, maybe positive during that weekly visit is now dread. Is she going to make me feel guilty or bad about something when I visit? Lately I cannot do enough for her, nothing is ever good enough.
If you find yourself saying these things, you need to get some support because you are probably reacting to her behavior. In similar we do the same thing with our teenagers. One day they are these cut wonderful kids and then somehow that normal day turns into a nightmare of odd behavior, unusual interests and talk and we now have a new normal day with the teenagers. Adjusting to the new normal is not easy and as caregivers we have to look at ourselves. Not that we are doing something wrong or bad to feel guilty about but rather, am I reacting to what my elderly loved is doing or sayiing? What history does that behavior hold for me? If she did that to me as a kid am I reacting as I did then?
If these reactions are occurring then you might be co-dependent with your elderly loved one. This means you have trouble identifying where you stop and the elderly person starts. You have lost boundaries. The ability to act on situations than react and the ability to know that it is okay to say no and that you don’t have to feel guilty about that.
]]>Now the easiest thing to do is hire a pharmacist or registered nurse to come in every single day or even several times a day and give the medications to your loved one. Although sounds easy, it is often not. First the cost involved would be astronomical to have a private nurse who can charge up to 75 dollars an hour to come into the home and administer the medications. Second if the nurse gets sick or cannot come to the home you are back in the same boat with a medication management problem.
If your loved one has purchased their meds at a local mom and pop pharmacy, the pharmacist will sometimes help you with understanding what the meds are, give you suggestions for how to administer them easily by fill a 7 day pill box or may even do what is referred to as bubble wrapping pills meaning the daily dose is enclosed in a small bubble on a card back and the dose is just pushed out of the cardboard when the person should take it.
Most people end up using the 7 day pill box system. This where a plastic box is purchased at the local pharmacy and has each day of the week identified on the lid of a rectangular box that can hold 7 days of dosages. A family member or a nurse can then fill each day's compartment with the pills that need to be taken. If the person gets morning dose, afternooon pills or evening pills then you can either purchase a larger box that will identify the morn, afternoon or evening on the top of the lids or you can just purchase individual 7 day boxes in different colors or the same and just write with marker on side in very large letters, morning, afternoon or evening. This is very cost effective way to try and manate meds for folks who have very bad eyesight, are mildly memory impaired or maybe have hard time getting the pill bottles opened.
If you have a person who cannot manage using a pill box either from a memory impairment or some other type of illness, there are machines that can be rented to dispense the medications for the client. For example, an MD2 machine is a medication dispensing machine that holds 60 doses of meds. It is a large round cylinder that holds 60 doses inside of its dome in the 7 individual cylinders that automatically spin and dispense the dose needed at the time needed in a small dixie cup. Family member still has to fill the 60 doses but the machine is set up on electric and telephone lines and the medication record is recorded in a computer that sends a signal to the machine that it is Monday morning 9 am and the meds need to come out. The dixie cup automatically slides down the shoot and out for the client to pick up. The person can pick up the dose and take it. The machines speaks to the person saying it is time for your medication. It will not stop speaking until the person pushes a red button on the machine. If the person does not push the button the machine sends a signal that the meds were not taken and the machine calls the monitoring station which then sends a signal to a son or daughter or designated person that the meds were not taken. This allows you to then call the person and say did you take your meds today? the machine is calling me. Go over and take them while I am on the phone with you.
Some machines are not as sophisticated as this and work in a similar fashion. It really depends on what your person needs. Sometimes it is necessary to have an outside caregiver come in to remind people to take their meds. One thing than can be done is to lock the meds up in a cabinet and leave the key in the same place all the time. The caregiver can then come in the home, find the key, open the cabinet, take the pill box out and remind the person to take the meds. Private caregivers such as certified nursing assistants, paid caregivers and other non-licensed individuals per law are not allow to administer medications out of a pill bottle.
Any person who is not licensed to give medications can severly harm or even cause a death if medications are not properly given. Even the best of the best licensed people can make a mistake so why put the life of your loved one in the hands of someone who has no training on giving meds or what the medications are. Plus it is very dangerous to fill boxes and give medications when you have distractions. Pill boxes should be filled when you are able to give it your full attention, check it twice and make sure you have a system that works for you so you know what's what.
Older people tend to have more than one doctor and sometimes this doctor does not know or check to see what meds the client is already on. The person goes to see a doctor and the next thing you know you have prescription changes. Again if you are filling the pill box, you need to be focused, have a system and know what you are doing without distraction. It is easy to put an evening med in with a daytime med.
Memory impaired individuals may struggle with any time of med management you set up. They cannot manage a pill box as they take things on wrong days or they take several days in a row. This is when you need to start to look at bringing in an outside caregiver and locking them up if the medication dispensing machine does not help with the problem. The machine can either help situation or make it worse. Sometimes memory impaired clients get paranoid of the machine, it overwhelms them and they don't know what to do when it speaks to them so that might not work for your situation either.
The bottom line is you always have to look at your loved one and what works for them. Sometimes family members just call on the phone every day and say mom take your pills now, I will wait until you take them. It is as simple as that. Some use pill boxes, some lock the pill boxes up and have caregiver, some use the medication dispensing machine, some work with pharamcist to come up with a way to package pills different and for some nothing works other than to be spoon fed in a dixie cup by a live person what they are suppose to take. Again the private caregiver should not take pills out of a pill bottle and put in dixie cup but can put them in dixie if in pill box because they are already dispensed. Please note, any reference to caregiver and dispensing meds is private paid outside caregiver, not a family member. Family members can dispense meds if you choose to do so. Any person though is liable for any medication mistake made and given to a person. For more information on medication dispensing machines, go to www.comfortkeepers.com and call the local office. Comfort Keepers provides in-home care but is also distributor of safety products such as life alert and medication dispensing machines.
]]>Building a relationship
There are many advantages of having someone you can count on provide in home care and building a relationship is one of them. As with any type of relationship, your first experiences may seem a bit awkward and perhaps uncomfortable. After all, you’re total strangers and you’ll need time to get to know one another. You’ve probably got a routine and the in-home carer needs to learn it.
But soon enough you’ll hopefully be very comfortable with your home companion. And if you’re not, there’s a good chance you can talk with someone – a family member or the provider of your in home care – to see about finding another with whom you might get along better. After all, this person is coming in your home to help you so it’s important that you’re able to work together.
With the same individual coming to your home regularly, you can’t help but develop a relationship with that person. It won’t take long before you’re friends, chatting about nothing, going out to eat or to the movies, and helping you to cope with whatever life delivers.
Remain in familiar surroundings
The fact that this person is coming into your home is perhaps one of the biggest advantages of in home care. Rather than being uprooted, you get to remain in your home, a familiar place that’s filled with your all your belongings and all your memories. That actually can help the relationship with your home companion grow. Your photographs, your decorating style, your pets and the like can tell a lot about the person you are. Knowing more about who you are is what’s going to help your home companion understand you better.
By understanding you and your individual needs better, you’ll have someone on whom you can rely to give you the personal attention you need on a daily or regular basis. That personal attention might involve matters of personal hygiene, or housekeeping, or errand running, or help with daily tasks, or friendship or all of the above. The ability to pick and choose the type of assistance you need most and that you want is another of the advantages of individual in home care.
There are other advantages, too. Family can relax knowing that you’re getting the care and attention that they aren’t able to provide, alleviating their guilt and their worry. In home care is also an affordable option and if you contract the services of a company that’s reputable, licensed and bonded, there’s little chance you or your home will be victimized in any way.
]]>The denial form which is where an individual knows that they are aging and having trouble either physically or cognitively and refuses to acknowledge it or talk about the changes that are happening. The illness form which refers to an illness such as dementia or some other serious illness that begins to incapitate the person either mentally or physically and the person is unable to tell you their desires.
Watching for patterns early on, discussing likes and dislikes can greatly assist you if you are ever in need of helping a loved one. For example, ask the loved one when you were a kid did you bathe in morning time or in the evening? Did you shower or bath? How about when I or us kids were little did you shower in the evening?
Ask the questions as if you are interested in knowing what it was like when you were little or when the loved one was a kid? Did your grandmother make meals at 4pm or later, maybe your grandfather worked nights and the family at early. Maybe your family ate at 6pm every night when your father came home. Did your mom have any certain routine she followed or your dad? Did they have a glass of wine before dinner or some certain routine that was done? These are important things to talk about and begin to learn because if you have a loved one who has a memory impairment, the person can live in the year that their mind is in. If that year is 1955 and bathing was done at night before bed then you may have to shower or sponge bath your loved one in the evening.
Being consistent and following routines can make a huge difference in getting your loved one to bathe. Sometimes we take it for granted that we are going to say okay bath time and just start helping the person to undress, etc. Sometimes we lose our patience and expect that the person knows what is about to happen and we don’t communicate the steps that we are taking. Depending on your loved one, it is often better to tell the loved one what is going to happen. For example, saying to the person, okay, we need to take your shirt off. Let’s pull this arm out of the shirt first and then we will do the other.
For a person with memory impairment who does not remember the steps of how to do something like bath, the act of pulling off clothes without communication can send them running or even become combative. Individuals with memory impairment can often react with either fight, flight or fright. This means if they are unsure about what is going to happen, they will either become combative, argumentive and possibly even try to hit you or they will try to flee from you and run away or they will just be so frightened they will almost freeze in posture and be difficult to move.
Sometimes it is necessary to tell them step by step what is occurring during the bathing process. Covering them with a towel is important as most individuals of the Depression era generation are very modest and may feel awkward or even ashamed of a stranger seeing them naked. If you have a memory impaired individual, depending on severe the impairment, even the daughter or son can be a stranger at bathing time.
Try to see bathing as an activity that requires the scheduling of time. Time to talk about it, time to begin the process of it happening, time to explain what you are doing and time to spend with loved one that is not rushed. Again try to learn patterns of old and new for bathing. Likes and dislikes for bathing, modesty and safety issues. Listen and watch. Take notes. Those notes may help you in the future. For more information on bathing and other senior related issues, go to www.comfortkeepers.com
]]>If you think this is you and you want to work between 2 and 40 hours per week for a company that can offer you flexible scheduling, competitive wages and recogition for job well done, you might be a Comfort Keeper.
]]>If you think this is you and you want to work between 2 and 40 hours per week for a company that can offer you flexible scheduling, competitive wages and recogition for job well done, you might be a Comfort Keeper.
Comfort Keepers of Springfield, PA is hosting a job fair on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 from 3pm to 5pm at their offices 920 W. Sproul Rd. Springfield, PA 19064. The office is located in the McKee Plaza at corner of 320 and route 1 bypass - middle building of 3.
If you are interested in applying for a job but cannot make the fair, please go to www.beacomfortkeeper.com and fill out a short application. If you are able to make the fair, please rsvp to us at delawarecounty@comfortkeepers.com. If you need directions or get lost, call us at 610-543-6300. For more information on Comfort Keepers, an international company with over 550 offices, go to www.comfortkeepers.com.
]]>For many families, the holiday season marks one of the only times of year that all members can gather together to celebrate and enjoy each other's company. The portrait before and after this joyous time, however, is often far less picturesque for seniors living alone or far away from relatives.
]]>For many families, the holiday season marks one of the only times of year that all members can gather together to celebrate and enjoy each other's company. The portrait before and after this joyous time, however, is often far less picturesque for seniors living alone or far away from relatives.
As the aging population continues to grow - the U.S. Census Bureau projects over 88 million people age 65 and older in the U.S. by 2050 - memory loss and dementia in seniors are posing a major public health burden and it's often difficult for relatives to monitor that aging family members are getting the level of stimulation and socialization they want and need. But there's hope: According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, researchers have found evidence that seniors in the United States with active social lives may have slower rates of memory decline and lower mortality rates.
Given these findings, Comfort Keepers®, in-home care services providers located nationwide, has provided the following tips for family members to address with their aging loved ones this holiday season to ensure a happy and healthy time is had by all.
During the holidays, seniors often experience feelings of isolation and loneliness, so it is important to keep them active and involved. Try to include your loved ones in the family holiday preparations and activities.
]]>During the holidays, seniors often experience feelings of isolation and loneliness, so it is important to keep them active and involved. Try to include your loved ones in the family holiday preparations and activities.
If you live far away from your loved one and cannot be with them for the full holiday season, try encouraging them to join a senior group in their area. Long, cold winters and holiday seasons often bring depression and isolation, so it is important that seniors feel connected and active. For more information go to:http://www.comfortkeepers.com/holidays/ActivityIdeas.html
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The care given should be interactive. Inter often refers to the experience between two people such as the word interpersonal. Active obviously refers to the motions or doings of the body. So when we put the word interactive together what we really mean is the experience between the caregiver and the senior occurs while they are doing an activity together. If we add caregiving or the assistance or support during an activity we have interactive caregiving or the experience that happens between two people while doing an activing whereby one is assisting the other.
In practical terms what does this mean? It means that individuals offering caregiving services should try at every turn to engage their senior in the activity he or she is doing at whatever level of functioning the senior can participate. This can be small things like when doing the laundry you let a senior fold a towel or towels and you fold along with the person. If the person becomes tired, you can offer to take over.
Many times our seniors have an activity they loved to do. For women it could have been cooking or laundry (like folding the towels) and they can no longer do the entire activity but they can do parts. For men it could have been fixing the small things around the house like a look doorknob or cabinet hinge. If caregivers slow down and learn these things about the senior they are going to help, the caregiving experience can be much more enjoyable to both the senior and the caregiver.
Interactive caregiving stimuates the mind and body and may be the best way to help the senior maintain their independence and dignity. For more information on interactive caregiving or find a caregiver, go to www.comfortkeepers.com. Comfort Keepers is an international provider of assisted living type services in the private home, hospital and facility to anyone over the age of 18. With over 550 offices across the U.S. find the one that is close to you and your family on our website under locations.
]]>Wednesday, Sept 3rd 2008 from 11 am to 2pm Comfort Keepers is having an open house and job fair for LIVE IN, WEEKENDS and part-time caregiver positions that are open now. Comfort Keepers provides assisted living services such as light housekeeping, laundry, meals, transportation, assistance with bathing and grooming to anyone over the age of 18 who is sick, disabled or elderly who reside in their own home, facility or hospital.
If you are interested in working for a company that will support you and provide you with training and competitive wages, attend our job fair and hear more about Comfort Keepers.
To register for job fair, reply to this posting and let us know you are attending. If interested but cannot make job fair, please reply to this posting with your resume and interest.
Job Fair is: Wednesday, September 3, 2008 from 11 am to 2pm at our offices, located 920 W. Sproul Rd, Springfield, PA 19064. If you are driving to our office, we are located right at corner of 320 (Sproul Rd) and Route 1 (township line rd) in the MCKEE plaza. middle buiding first floor. If you need to take Septa take bus 110 or 111 (from 69th street) the bus stop is in walking distance from the office. Again our office is located in the MCKEE Plaza-3 office buildings on corner of 320 and route 1 - middle building first floor.
Applicants must be able to meet I-9 paperwork, pass criminal background and reference checks. Comfort Keepers is an EOE. wwwbeacomfortkeeper.com
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Sometimes we get caught up in the caregiving, the stressful times when we are worried about mom or dad's health and wellbeing and forget about the companionship part of caregiving. This part can often be done by a fellow senior who visits for a short period of time just to talk and maybe go over events of the past. There is something to be said for the companionship of someone who was there when the event of the past happened.
I often say we think about our lives in our time. We will all be telling our grandchildren about the election of 2008 when a woman and an african american fought it out to be a major party's nominee. How the party nominated an african american male to be president and how another party stepped up to nominate a woman vice-president. When our kids are grown and our country continues to grow in its integration and acceptance our kids will look at us and say "really it was really like that at one time?" It may be hard for them to relate to the experience just as it is difficult for me sometimes to relate to the experience of the Depression and to understand why people in their 80's still save things the way they do, fear they will never have enough money and are in constant state of being prepared for a financial disaster. Although I can hear their concerns and I can read about it I know the seniors know I was not there and it is not the same experience as talking with another person who lived through it.
The value of having someone who has lived what you lived is comforting and often reassures you that the world is not totally out of your reach and understanding. In today's day and age with cell phones and the technology, the world can seem a very impersonal and distant place to our seniors who lived on a block where all the kids played in the street, visited each others homes and traditions were the way of life. To be able to talk about those traditions to another who has lived it and understands it provides the companionship that can stimulate a mind and memory in positive ways.
Seniors helping seniors is an incredible and underestimated way to provide additional care and companionship to those we love. For more information on how to help a loved one go to: wwww.comfortkeepers.com
]]>Seventy percent of people who work try to fit in all the caregiving tasks around work. Every day becomes more stressful as parents have more falls and they slow down. Sometimes co-workers have no idea why the person is stressed out, snappy, controlling and impatient. All they know is they really don't like being around X because she or he is so stressed out.
Well the number killer of caregivers is stress. Not asking for help, not telling their boss or co-workers what is going on. Not hiring a caregiver to take some of the burden off often because they don't even know its available to them. So if you work with someone who is stressed and impatient, take the time to ask if there is anything you can do to help and maybe that person will open up and tell you about what is stressing him or her out. Be compassionate and understand that the person is trying to do his or her best with everything and everyone and any criticism can seem exaggerated and attacking. Caregiving can be a thankless job and we need to support and help anyone who is providing care to a love one. For more statistics and information go to: www.comfortkeepers.com.
]]>As we age, changes occur. Using your five senses, you can determine the need for elder care or senior living services. Comfort Keepers has a checklist of key indicators to guide you through this process. These key indicators, or warning signs, will help you determine if your loved one needs home care assistance immediately or may need additional assistance down the road.
Typically, elder care and senior living services are provided to give assistance with instrumental activities of daily living and activities of daily living. If you need assistance in determining the level of care needed for your loved one, Comfort Keepers can work with you to formulate a care plan that incorporates their needs, wishes and preferred schedule. If the senior prefers to stay in his or her own home, home care can provide the necessary assistance needed.
There are now many options available when it comes to elder care and senior care. Our Senior FAQs page provides information on the available options. To find out about available services in your community, please contact the Comfort Keepers location where care is to be provided.
Oftentimes, decisions about elder care and senior living are made as a result of an injury or illness and a decision regarding home care, home healthcare or assisted living service must be made quickly. However, planning for senior living and elder care will allow you to make the best decisions for all involved. Planning ahead for senior living and elder care can alleviate much of the stress and worry about finding the best option for care at home. If you have questions about planning ahead, Comfort Keepers can guide you through this process.
Finally, for more information about senior living and elder care options, we have put together a list of Informational Links to help you find the information you need.
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