Growing old is not much fun, but it is something that is going to happen to us all, accidents and illness permitting, and it is something that we should be thinking about when we consider the question of how we feel the elderly should be card for.
Like many of you, having been a child myself, and having then reached adulthood and raised two children of my own whilst watching my own parents grow slowly older, gives one a new perspective on the question of how best to administer care and support for the elderly. Just stop for a moment and consider what you, yourself might prefer; after all, it really might be you one day.
One thing is for sure, I think that all of us would like to remain in the comfort and familiarity of our own homes when we are elderly. Anyone, but particularly someone older and perhaps more frail, is bound to feel that much more safe and secure; and providing the property in question is suitable; warm, dry, light, well aired, no steep stairs etc., remaining in their own home should be the number one on the priority list.
If the elderly person in question is not 100% able to care for themselves, then some form of support is going to be necessary. Ideally this support is best provided by the elderly person’s close family. Once again, it is the familiarity of those faces and the characters that are known and loved that makes all the difference.
But caring for the elderly is not easy. All to often they become cantankerous and seemingly ungrateful, and this can put quite a lot of stress on to someone who is doing their very best to look after them.
If family members are not up to the task, then they should not get involved. A bad care worker is not an option.
Professional care workers are a special brand of people. They are kind, caring and wonderfully tolerant, and they can turn their hand to a multitude of tasks to improve their charge’s quality of life.
Other services, such as meals on wheels, delivering hot food to the door can be a great boon too. All too often, proper nutrition is one of the first things to suffer when the elderly are left to fend for themselves, so this is an invaluable service and helps to keep them nourished, which also of course helps to ward off illness.
The alternative to caring for the elderly in their own home is to put them into some sort of care home. Of course there are some very good care homes around, but sadly they are few and far between. All too often they are sub-standard in much of what they provide, including nutrition which can in turn lead to poor health. Cleanliness is often neglected, and there is nothing worse that going into one of these care homes and smelling stale urine everywhere.
One of the important aspects for promoting well being in the elderly is emotional support. It is a traumatic time in their lives. They may often suffer from low esteem if they are no longer able to do some things for themselves that once they could, and more often than not they may have lost irreplaceable loved ones, so emotional support can be an important crutch. This sort of emotional support is often difficult to find in a care home; staff are under pressure and have a lot of demands on their time.
The care in the own home solution, together with a family care worker if possible, or a competent, caring professional carer is by far the superior way to go. It is also a much cheaper solution than paying the often exorbitant costs of a care home.
Read more on The Best Kept Secret in Elder Care Support…
