Home Care or Home Health Care Services To Assess And Avail For Better Social Connections

It is seen that when seniors are left to age in isolation, in such conditions they deteriorate faster than usual both mentally and physically. The alternative option is to age in place. However, when you wish to age in place there are a few important factors that you need to consider, evaluate and asses the situations and needs that will make aging in your place fruitful and cost-effective.

Talking about the cost factor, there are a few other important things to consider as well when you decide to age in your place. These are: assess

Whether or not your home is suitable for aging and will support your activities when you age
Whether you will be able to establish and keep your social contacts
Whether you have relatives and close friends nearby
Whether you will be able to see your friends and contacts regularly
Will they will be able and willing to help you when you need them the most
Will they will be there a couple of years down the road
Whether you will be able to establish new relationships in case the people you know around you moves out or passes away and much more.

At times when most of these answers are negative, you will need to consider taking help from the others, the home care and home health care providers, so to speak.

A commonly overlooked example

Take a typical example, driving. At some point of time when you age you will not be able to drive regularly. You may even not want to drive, especially when you suffer from reduced night vision, one of the common issues faced by most of the older citizens.

In such situations you may not be able to drive when night falls. However, it may be so that:

You may have a prior appointment with a doctor who is available only in the evenings or

You may even need to pay a social visit to your friend’s place at night for dinner.

What happens then to your treatments or even to your social connections at that point?

It may not be a problem if you stay in the city or an urban area as you will be able to get reliable alternate transportation but the problem is when you live outside the urban areas. In such situations being able to drive is essential to maintain the quality of life. It is in these types of unforeseen situations when you will need a home care service provider.

Maintain social connections

One of the main health care assistant jobs, especially in a home setting, apart from the basics such as providing proper care and attention as well as reminding about the medications that you need to take on time is that they will help you to maintain your social connections as well.

There are lots of different technologies that can help you to a great extent in maintaining social connections with useful apps such as:

Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Instagram and others.

However, in some times you will also need a certain amount of in-person contact with other people who are close to you. This technology cannot replace, but the home health care aide can help you to do so by staying with you, of course for a fee.

Ideally, it is seen that most of the senior citizens cite social connections as one of the factors that they consider to stay in their homes and age. They say that it will be affected negatively when they live in an assisted care facility. They cite that their social connections include:

Nearby family
Longtime and close friends
The faith community
Different clubs and associations and other similar contacts.

They feel that it is only by staying in the same general community will enable them to maintain contacts with these people. They are even willing to shift to another living unit in the backyard or nearby to their home, rather than moving to an assisted care living facility or in a nursing home. In such situations, you will need to hire a home care or home health care service.

Helps in apartment-style independent living

Another significant time when you will find that the home health care concept is rewarding is when you want to stay independently especially in an apartment. This type of living can also be better suited for an older you. One of the most significant advantages of apartment-style independent living is that you will have total control of all proceedings and activities in your life. Read about medical condition.

You host social gatherings in your place or even visit some other’s place to make better new connections and maintain your existing ones. These can be as frequent as you want without having to be obligated to anyone.
Another merit of apartment-style living is that you will have a lot of people to meet and socialize with and for that matter, you do not even have to leave the building at all.

You will have a wide range of activities on the calendar. All you have to do is choose the ones that is of your interest.

Assessing such services

Your independent living and aging in place will only be fruitful when you have a trusted, compassionate and reliable aide by your side. Therefore, when you want to hire a home care or home health care service you will have to focus on a few specific things such as:

The types of services they provide
The cost of hiring such services
The inclusions and exclusions within the service package
The additional cost of additional services that may be required off and on
Their availability of aides and arrangements made in case of absence or emergencies
Their years in service and
Their previous track records, customer testimonials, reviews, and ratings.

It is only when you hire the best services you will have the best alternative to moving, aging in your place of choice. Therefore, take some time to research and find the best service provider. Once again, your existing social connections will help you a lot in this matter.