Home Care Asheboro NC provides the right level of assistance to help your loved ones live safely at home.
Caregivers provide mental stimulation, emotional support and a sense of social connection. This human touch helps to combat loneliness for seniors who are living alone or recently discharged from a hospital or facility.
The ability to perform basic tasks, such as getting dressed and using toilet facilities, is the key to a good quality of life. If a loved one is no longer able to manage these daily activities, it may be time to start considering home care for them. However, it can be difficult to determine whether their abilities have deteriorated enough to need help. Thankfully, there are free online tools that can help you gauge your loved one’s daily living capabilities, such as the Lawton-Brody IADL Scale and Katz Index of Independence in ADLs.
These tests will give you a clear idea of the amount of assistance your loved one needs with daily tasks, but they’re not the only tool to measure their abilities. Other assessments, like the Katz ADL scale and the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) Scale, provide a more nuanced picture of their abilities by examining more advanced skills.
Both types of assessment can help you identify a potential need for home care before it becomes an emergency situation. For example, if your loved one’s ability to move from place to place without assistance has been compromised, they might need home health aides to assist with transfers. A lack of assistance with basic ADLs, such as bathing and dressing, can be a dangerous condition that increases the risk of falls, which are often the cause of injuries in older adults.
In addition to providing safety, assistance with ADLs can also reduce the risk of social isolation and improve overall mental well-being. Caregivers can help your loved ones maintain good hygiene, eat healthy meals and stay on track with their medications. They can also manage household chores, which prevent a buildup of clutter and keep the home clean and safe.
Seniors and people with disabilities need help with ADLs because their physical or mental limitations make them unable to handle them alone. Unfortunately, this help isn’t always covered by Medicare or private insurance and may be cost-prohibitive for people in lower socioeconomic groups. This leads to unmet ADL needs, which can result in unsafe conditions or even hospitalization.
Personal Care
Personal care services are a key element of home health and focus on helping your loved one with tasks that support their physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. These activities include washing, brushing teeth, getting dressed and bathed, eating and drinking, and using the toilet.
Personal caregivers are trained to help your loved one manage these responsibilities in a way that respects their dignity and independence. They’re able to provide support with daily routines and ensure that your loved one’s medications are taken correctly. In some cases, they can prepare meals or help with the laundry as well.
Unlike home health, personal care services are typically not covered by Medicare. Most families pay for them out of pocket or with private long-term care insurance or a Medicaid waiver called home and community based services (HCBS).
If you’re considering personal care for your loved one, consider the following questions:
Does your loved one need assistance getting in and out of bed? Do they need reminders to wash their hands or brush their teeth? Are they having trouble eating or swallowing? Do they need help with grocery shopping, cooking, or taking medication? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then personal care may be the right option.
In addition to supporting physical and mental well-being, personal care services can also keep your loved one safe. Having someone to wash and groom them helps prevent infections, while maintaining good hygiene can reduce the risk of falling or injury. In fact, it’s estimated that falls account for up to 90 percent of nursing home admissions and cost the country more than $5 billion annually.
Keeping your loved ones comfortable in familiar surroundings and close to family and friends can help them avoid the need for residential care, which can be emotionally distressing for both them and their families. MEDITECH’s Home Health, Hospice, and Personal Care components of Expanse EHR make it easy for hospitals to closely monitor recently-discharged patients in the comfort of their own homes and communities, avoiding costly readmissions and ED visits.
Respite Care
Caring for a loved one with a disability or chronic health condition can be overwhelming. It’s important for caregivers to take time to attend to their own emotional and physical well-being. Respite care is a way for caregivers to do just that.
In-home respite care provides a temporary break for caregivers to pursue work, spend time with family and friends, or simply relax. Homemakers or aides can help with routine tasks like laundry, grocery shopping, and meal preparation. Some agencies also offer companionship services for seniors to make sure they have social interaction.
Some types of home health aides can be recertified to provide this type of care. This requires additional training and certification from a nursing agency or other medical organization. However, this type of care is more expensive than regular home health aide services.
Many people who need home care are eligible for it through government programs such as Medicaid’s Home and Community Based Services Waiver, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program, or Medicare Advantage Plans. To learn more, contact your local Case Management Agency.
Caregivers who use respite care often develop creative solutions to address the challenges of arranging and funding this type of care. For example, some families have employed video-gaming systems to connect with distant relatives, others pay family members to tag-team for each other rather than bringing in outside assistance, and still others purchase items such as trampolines to give children with behavioral special needs the diversion and activity they need during respite.
Depending on your situation and budget, you may find it easier to afford respite care through in-home care from an experienced home health aide or agency. You may even be able to apply for financial assistance from your state’s aging and disabled services agency or local social service department.
In-home respite care can be scheduled around your loved one’s daily schedule. You can schedule a specific number of days or weeks, or just a few hours at a time. This enables you to attend a family wedding or graduation, schedule a medical procedure, or simply leave the house for a day of leisure.
Medical Care
Home care services often provide a variety of medical and non-medical services to meet the needs of individuals. For example, home health aides can help consumers with bathing, dressing, grooming and toileting, while companionship services focus on providing emotional support and social activities. Non-medical home care services are also available to help with medication reminders and transportation for doctor visits or social outings.
Other common home care services include visiting nurses and private duty nursing care, both of which can be physician prescribed. Nurses and aides can help monitor symptoms, administer medications, give wound dressings, and perform other basic tasks as needed. Private duty nursing services are typically available through long-term home health agencies that contract with and are monitored by local Departments of Social Services. These home care providers can usually be accessed through Medicare, Medicaid and long-term insurance coverage.
Short-term rehabilitation or sub-acute rehab is a specialized type of home health care that helps individuals who have been recently discharged from a hospital or inpatient rehabilitation facility regain strength, mobility and independence at home. This service is provided by a team of healthcare professionals, including occupational and physical therapists, who work with nurses and home health aides to deliver therapy treatments in the comfort and familiarity of an individual’s own home.
In addition to preventing hospital readmissions, reducing emergency room (ER) visits and providing patients with the highest quality of life possible, home health care can be an affordable option for those who require medical assistance.
Getting started with home care is easy. For consumers who are preparing to return home from a hospital or rehab facility, a discharge planner (often a Social Worker) can often help arrange for a home care agency to provide services upon the consumer’s discharge. Consumers who are already residing in their homes can ask their doctor to refer them for home care services or contact a local home care agency directly to begin the process of arranging services.