Trusting someone to provide excellent care to your elderly loved one may be difficult to do, which is why your family should take time to choose the right person for the job. The in-home caregiver may spend a lot of time with your loved one, perhaps even more than you or other family members do, so you should choose someone who boosts your loved one’s mental, physical, and emotional health. Take a look at some of the traits professional in-home caregivers need to be successful at their jobs.
Attentiveness
Your loved one won’t be able to see a doctor on a daily basis. Instead, it will be the caregiver who monitors your loved one’s health and reports any changes to you and other family members.
If your loved one has issues with prescribed medication, sleeping patterns, or certain foods, the caregiver will need to report those changes immediately. Being attentive allows your loved one to get the help he or she needs before the health issue can progress.
Seniors who want to remain healthy as they age can benefit in a variety of ways when they receive professional elderly home care. Home Care Assistance is here to help your loved one accomplish daily tasks, prevent illness, and focus on living a healthier and more fulfilling life.
Flexibility
Seniors who require in-home care typically need assistance around the clock. Therefore, it’s important their caregivers have flexibility in terms of scheduling. If you have to stay behind at work or other family members are unable to relieve the in-home caregiver, he or she may need to stay over.
Seniors living with chronic illnesses cannot have a gap in their care. For instance, if your loved one has dementia, he or she could forget to turn off the stove or wander outside the home if there’s a gap in his or her care.
Compassion
Losing independence and relying on others for care can be challenging for aging adults. They may be embarrassed about allowing someone to help them with incontinence issues or daily tasks such as bathing and dressing. This is why being compassionate is a trait all professional caregivers should have.
Sometimes seniors need their caregivers to sit down and just hold their hands and remind them that everything will be fine. An in-home caregiver should be willing to sit and listen, offer encouraging words and advice, and be a shoulder to lean on.
For families living in Fair Oaks, respite care can be a wonderful solution when their aging loved ones need companionship and socialization a few hours a week or just need minor assistance with daily household tasks. At Home Care Assistance, we thrive on helping seniors maintain their independence while living in the comfort of home.
Trustworthiness
Professional in-home caregivers sometimes have access to the personal and financial information of the seniors they’re hired to care for. This includes personal identification numbers, insurance cards, banking information, credit cards, and mortgage documents. Therefore, your family will need to choose an in-home caregiver you can trust with this information. Otherwise, you’ll be putting your loved one at greater risk for fraud. You should also verify the agency you choose performs background checks on all of its staff members.
In Fair Oaks, at-home care agencies can be a great boon to seniors. With the help of the caregivers at Home Care Assistance, your aging loved one can lead a happier and healthier life. We offer a revolutionary program called the Balanced Care Method, which encourages seniors to eat nutritious foods, exercise and socialize regularly, and focus on other lifestyle factors that increase life expectancy. To learn more about our premier in-home care plans, call us at (916) 485-4663 today.