Does my loved one need help?
Home care services should be tailored to meet each person’s unique needs. When selecting home care services, the list below can assist in understanding a person’s behavior and help you determine the type of care needed, while still providing them with independence and dignity.
- Managing finances: Are bills being paid late or being forgotten altogether?
- Errands: Is running simple errands, such as grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments or a trip to pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy, becoming a challenge?
- Post surgery: Is managing simple daily activities after coming home from the hospital after surgery a challenge?
- Memory loss/Dementia: Is a gradual or sudden loss of memory and language skills resulting in evasive answers in an attempt to cover the inability to remember words, places and people?
- Diminished hearing: Is your loved ones not always answerng the phone or taking a long time pick up when you call – even though they’d always answered with no problems before?
- Diminished sight: Is your loved one experiencing falls? Have you noticed a hesitance in his or her walk?
- Falls: Is your loved one experiencing unexplained bruises, often accompanied by explanations for cuts, bruises or broken bones that don’t ring true?
- Incontinence: Are there clothing stains or odors emanating from furniture, clothing or automobile seats?
- Self neglect: Are you noticing poor eating habits and inadequate nutrition/hydration? What about a failure or inability to follow through on physician’s instructions, medicine dosages, etc.?
- Personal hygiene: Is your loved one afraid or not able to get into the bath and too embarrassed to ask for help?
- Activity level: Has your loved one stopped engaging in previously enjoyable activities like playing cards, singing or dancing? This could be a sign of depression or a sign that the capability to do these activities is slipping. The inability to do what they used to do can trigger depression.
- Sleep patterns: Is your loved one staying in bed more? This could be a sign that they don’t feel well, but can also be a symptom of depression.
- Medication administration: Has your loved one stopped taking medicine as prescribed? They might be experiencing some side effects to a medication. Check with the doctor or a pharmacist as to what the possible side effects are of the medicine they are resisting and then check for these side effects.