Health and Safety
Opting for elderly care at home entails various safety considerations on your part to ensure that you are not posing any threat to their health and safety. Due to the lack of coordination and reduced sensitivity to their environment, elderly individuals also lack the capacity to assess the features on their environment on whether it poses hazard on them. Hence, the responsibility lies mainly on the caregiver to constantly keep an eye on them.
About Safety Issues
When talking about safety issues involved in elderly care, it does not refer to the incapacity or inefficiency on the part of the elderly care provider. Instead, it focuses on the reduced capacity of aging individuals to performing daily chores or activities independent of any help.
Therefore, providing assistance on whatever task an elderly individual needs to accomplish is extremely important not just to ensure that the task is accomplished but that they do it without harming themselves in the process.
Aside from the safety features within your house, you also need to consider their physical ability to do such activities. For instance, an aging person could be in danger of falling or sliding off when trying to walk towards an object or through a door. Hence, you need to guide them safely through that. These are just some of the most basic safety concerns involved with elderly care.
Safety on Medications
Most elderly individuals with in-home care take medications for certain health conditions that they are experiencing. Therefore, medication safety is another major concern when it comes to elderly home health care. Here are some tips to avoid complication involved with medications that an aging person must take during home care:
• Verify with your doctor when taking vitamins or other supplements along with other medications that the doctor has issued for your elder parents. This will help avoid possible complications.
• Take the medication as prescribed by your doctor to get maximum results. If possible, avoid missing doses.
• If you cannot afford a particular medication, be truthful to your doctor. They can suggest generic brands that will help produce the same results with less the financial burden.
Keeping Your Home Safe
Most elderly individuals insist to obtain the same level of freedom and mobility that they are used to. Therefore, when this case happens to your parents during home care, you need to assess the level of safety within your home. Be open and flexible in your approach such that you do not cause any real threat to the elderly individual’s safety within the house.
One important thing you need to establish if you want to ensure their safety is your firmness in your decision when it comes to designing the safety features of the house. If you feel that you need to change the design of the stairs or re-arrange tables inside the house, then do it firmly. Place rugs in strategic places that will help avoid the possibility of elder persons slipping from them.
Provide switch to lights in accessible spots so that elderly people can easily turn them on when entering a dim room. The shower area or toilet is another important area of the house that must be considered closely when it comes to coming up with safety designs. Accidents often happen in the shower room especially when elderly individuals go there unassisted.
Transportation Safety
Transportation is another concern regarding safety for elderly care. Most aging individuals are incapable of walking unassisted, or without using any walking or transporting devices. When your elderly parents go outside the house, you need to have proper transportation devices for them.
Several types of wheelchairs or walkers are available in the market that cater to the transportation needs of elderly individuals, whether they are totally incapable of walking or can walk but needs some form of assistance.
Properly choosing the device to use not only provides utmost convenience for the elderly person but also avoid slipping or falling off.
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