As a homecare agency professional, you have likely worked past the awkwardness that can accompany assisting the elderly in their personal care. But for a senior’s family members, personal care tasks can be harder to take on. In this post, our homecare professionals list some suggestions you can recommend to family caregivers.
Change Their Viewpoint
Suggest to family members that they think of these tasks as medical necessities. For example, instead of a son providing a tube feeding for his father, he’s providing nourishment to help him heal.
Maximize Their Usefulness
As a homecare agency worker, you can encourage family members to have the senior – if they are able—perform the parts of a task that are most difficult emotionally for both parties, such as washing private areas.
Utilize Distraction
Just as when a small child has to get a shot, a parent may sing or talk to them to keep their mind off the task at hand; the same premise can be applied to personal care tasks. Carrying on a conversation with a senior or reminiscing about past memories, can work to get the task done quickly and efficiently with little embarrassment.
Convenience is Their Friend
Try using bath wipes and dry shampoo in between full baths and wet wipes for toileting needs.
Routine is Key
Suggesting families implement a regimen for a senior’s personal care tasks, especially for those patients who suffer from dementia, is crucial. A regular routine creates a sense of stability for the senior and their families. Prompt family members to perform hygiene tasks when a senior is most alert.
Ask for Help
Remind family members there is no shame in asking for help, especially if it prevents caretaker burn-out.
At Nightingale Homecare, one of Arizona’s top rated home health agencies, we know what it means to be a caregiver, working to keep a loved one at home where he or she can have the highest possible quality of life. Our Professional Homecare staff is happy to come out and give family members a respite break from providing care. Call (602) 504-1555 or contact our homecare agency online to learn more about Phoenix at home care.
