home help
How to Cope with Home Care Long Term
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | home care | 1 Comment
Caring at home for the elderly is a very important function as part of the overall health service all over the world. However it does put a huge burden on the home situation when it comes to looking after elderly parents or relatives. This burden can come in two ways one is the mental burden of looking after somebody every single day and having to do the same thing every single day; the other one is financial. Even if a parent or relative is not in the home care situation they are probably in a nursing home which has to be paid for. Having a relative in a nursing home can be very costly and as the recession deepens and more and more people lose their jobs it is getting harder for people to support their parents either at home or in a nursing home.
I was very taken aback by a show that I listened to on the radio this week where people were ringing up and pouring their hearts out about their own situations. It was a mixture of home carers and families supporting their love ones in a nursing home. People were talking about becoming unemployed and having no income coming in to the house wondering how they were going to live and also how they’re going to continue to pay for nursing home bills. The emotional burden that this was putting on people was enormous and families are really finding it hard to cope. The one sentence that really caught me was when a woman said that she almost wished her parent to die so that burden would be lifted and she could get on with her normal life. The pressure that somebody has to be under in order to say something like that must be enormous and is very hard to understand and also very hard to resolve. Especially where the relative is in a nursing home and the only thing that will resolve the situation is money and where is the money going to come from? Nobody was able to answer that question.
In fact I listened to the show for about two hours and I was glad that people had the chance to publicly raise the issue in the hope that something might be done but what I was disheartened about was the lack of possible solutions support that was aired on the show. There was very little answers to the problems people were having. Should the government step in and look after these people? Unfortunately the government don’t have the funds either.
While it’s not a solution but if there is family support there might be a way to ease the pressure and this could make a huge difference. Without families getting together to do what they can it is almost impossible for one person to take on the burden. I don’t see any other short-term solution to the problem. The one thing that people have more of is time. Because of the recession more people are out of work but also they should have the ability to give their time when in the past they didn’t. Just in the same way as children are being minded in the home a lot more as more people are out of work the same should apply for the week and the vulnerable.
Home Care: Things to Consider before You Start
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | home care | No Comments
Before anyone can consider taking care of an elderly relation or friend there are a whole host of issues to consider. Quite often relatives don’t want the burden of looking after their elderly parents or relatives, this may seem harsh but when you look at people’s circumstances they are often very good reasons why this is the case.
Families may have very young children and if both parents are working long hours with young children they may not have the time to look after anybody else; especially these days when young people are tied into very large mortgages and see no option but to keep on working to pay their way. Also the size of families is getting smaller which means there is less offspring around to take care of the elderly and depending on what are the circumstances it can be a huge task taking care of somebody in your home.
It would always be a daunting task looking after somebody in their later years however there are things one can do to get help to make the task easier and not to feel alone. It is very easy to feel lonely as if the world is caving in on top of you as the responsibilities mount up and the daily routine can become a never ending cycle.
So what can be done? Where can you go and who can you go to for help? The first place to start would be with the parents or relatives local GP. The doctor will be a great source of help giving you avenues to explore maybe even contact names and telephone numbers. These days most health services work together to deliver an all-around system while no health service in the world is perfect you need to make sure that you make maximum use of the resources available.
Ring the local authorities or local support groups that you or your doctor may know of. You will find that once you start talking to any agency they will point you in the right direction because the caregiver’s world is a small one and the one should know what is available in the local area. If you’re having no luck at all called the national offices and they will be able to point you in the right direction.
Use the Internet to find out what’s available, these days almost everything is available on the Internet and many sites have links to other relevant sites that may have more information for you. Once you start researching your needs on the Internet you will be amazed at the information that you will find leaving you to discover avenues that you haven’t even thought off.
No matter how hard your situation is, don’t give up on the care for the elderly at least until you have explored all the avenues that are available to you. It’ll take determination hard work but the rewards are huge if you decide to take care of the elderly. It is not easy but just think of the help that you might need someday.
Home Care as the Option
Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | home care | No Comments
Taking care of our elderly is a huge problem for our society and it is really important that we plan to take care of the older generation and one of the best ways to do this is to incorporate a home care plan that works well with our national healthcare strategy.
The world wide trend in the developing countries is that people are living longer and this trend is set to continue as advances are continuously made in medicine. Of course this is a huge benefit to us all as every one of us would like to live longer however there are some drawbacks. The fact that people are living longer the requirements for care as we get older is becoming greater every year and the resources to provide this care need to be in place in order for the elderly to be taking care of. One of the ways that care can be provided is through home care. When a patient doesn’t need constant medical care that individual can get provided for through the home care program. A home care program is provided as part of a health care strategy, whereby medical assistance is provided to the patient while they stay at their own home or with a friend or relative.
Taking care of patients at home has huge benefits both to the healthcare system and to the patients. As far as the hospitals are concerned sending a patient home to be cared for will free up bed space for the hospital which would allow more patience to be treated and therefore improving the overall efficiency of the hospital. To complement that, there are far more benefits to the patient because it is a well-known fact that outside the hospital patients are less likely to get infected with viruses like MRSA and would therefore need less medical attention and would recover from illness a lot quicker. Also because patients are being cared for by people who they know and love, the care tends to be of a higher quality when compared to nursing homes. Also if a patient has the ability to get around they can do small jobs around the house and therefore have a sense of purpose which is something that you wouldn’t feel if they were staying in a nursing home type of environment. This can have a hugely positive effect on the general well-being of the patient because being in familiar surroundings and being cared for by people they know can have a positive effect on patients overall health and at a minimum would reduce the feeling of loneliness that can be huge part of staying within healthcare facilities.
As home care is generally part of the overall health care strategy there are a lot of supports that one can avail of in-home care situation. Part of that decision to put a patient in the home care support network is as a result of a detailed assessment by the doctors to see if a patient is suitable to be cared for at home. Once that decision is made there are a number of supports available for example home help resources can be allocated so that the patient and the family can get outside help on a daily basis to assist with the extra responsibility of looking after someone in the home. Because of other extra support like grants it makes looking after someone at home more feasible, just ask yourself the question if you were the patient would you prefer to stay in a nursing home or be cared for in the home where you’ve lived for most of your life?
Home Care or a Nursing Home?
Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | home care | No Comments
Taking care of the elderly is something that we need to plan for because it is something that takes resources and money to cater for. Nobody likes to think about it because it always something that is so far away and there always seems like there is plenty of time to put plans in place. However what happens to most of us is that time creeps up with us and very often we have no plans and rely on the government to take care of us. In some ways that should be fine after all the taxes we have paid there should be some level of care for us when we get older.
There is a case to be made for taking control of our own destiny, at least to some degree. One should have a good pension first of all in order to have a means to make a contribution to being taken care of. Whatever happens to us in our later years we will end up in a nursing home, being cared for by loved ones or using some kind of home care system? The point is they all cost money and we should have something in our personal assets to help pay for our care.
I believe that home care is the best form of care if it can be managed. There are a lot of things to consider before deciding whether a nursing home or whether or not homecare is more suitable, however if your general health is manageable home care it is the best for you if you have the support of your family or friends.
Benefits of staying at home:
• Still part of the family on a daily basis.
• Better able to have a sense of purpose if you can help out in a small way.
• Familiar surroundings.
• Lest chance of infection.
• Maintaining a network of family and friends.
• More choice of what to do.
• More cost effective.
Benefits of a nursing home:
• Better support for rehabilitation treatment.
• Closer monitoring by health professionals.
• Purpose built facilities to cater for the elderly.
• More access to wheelchairs, walking frames, better toilet facilities etc.
As you can see there are a lot of issues to consider before you make your decision and often it’s not your decision it’s a family decision, as it can be a huge undertaking for a family to take on the care of an elderly person even with the support of home care organisation.
The easy option is sometimes to send the elderly person into a nursing home and this reduces the burden on the family but increases the burden on the state and I think if we are fair and reasonable about it we can’t expect the state to take care of all our problems. The elderly can be the forgotten group having outlived their usefulness but you have ask yourself two things, where you be without them and what would you like to happen to you when you get old?
Home Help: Refuse the Useless Strain
Friday, May 1st, 2009 | home care | No Comments
Here are some simple directions which may help nervous patients, if considered in regular order. They can hardly be read too often if the man or woman is in for a long siege; and if simply and steadily obeyed, they will shorten the siege by many days, nay, by many weeks or months, in some cases.
Remember that Nature tends towards health. All you want is nourishment, fresh air, exercise, rest, and patience.
All your worries and anxieties now are tired nerves.
When a worry appears, drop it. If it appears again, drop it again. And so continue to drop it if it appears fifty or a hundred times a day or more.
If you feel like crying, cry; but know that it is the tired nerves that are crying, and don’t wonder why you are so foolish,–don’t feel ashamed of yourself.
If you cannot sleep, don’t care. Get all the rest you can without sleeping. That will bring sleep when it is ready to come, or you are ready to have it.
Don’t wonder whether you are going to sleep or not. Go to bed to rest, and let sleep come when it pleases.
Think about everything in Nature. Follow the growing of the trees and flowers. Remember all the beauties in Nature you have ever seen.
Say Mother-Goose rhymes over and over, trying how many you can remember.
Read bright stories for children, and quiet novels, especially Jane Austen’s.
Sometimes it helps to work on arithmetic.
Keep aloof from emotions.
Think of other people.
Never think of yourself. Bear in mind that nerves always get well in waves; and if you thought yourself so much better,–almost well, indeed,–and then have a bad time of suffering, don’t wonder why it is, or what could have brought it on. Know that it is part of the recovery-process; take it as easily as you can, and then ignore it.
Don’t try to do any number of things to get yourself well; don’t change doctors any number of times, or take countless medicines. Every doctor knows he cannot hurry your recovery, whatever he may say, and you only retard it by being over-anxious to get strong. Drop every bit of unnecessary muscular tension.
When you walk, feel your feet heavy, as if your shoes were full of lead, and think in your feet.
Be as much like a child as possible. Play with children as one of them, and think with them when you can.
As you begin to recover, find something every day to do for others. Best let it be in the way of house-work, or gardening, or something to do with your hands.
Take care of yourself every day as a matter of course, as you would dress or undress; and be sure that health is coming. Say over and over to yourself: Nourishment, fresh air, exercise, rest, PATIENCE.
When you are well, and resume your former life, if old associations recall the unhappy nervous feelings, know that it is only the associations; pay no attention to the suffering, and work right on. Only be careful to take life very quietly until you are quite used to being well again.
An illness that is merely nervous is an immense opportunity, if one will only realize it as such. It not only makes one more genuinely appreciative of the best health, and the way to keep it, it opens the sympathies and gives a feeling for one’s fellow-creatures which, having once found, we cannot prize too highly.
It would seem hard to believe that all must suffer to find a delicate sympathy; it can hardly be so. To be always strong, and at the same time full of warm sympathy, is possible, with more thought. When illness or adverse circumstances bring it, the gate has been opened for us.
If illness is taken as an opportunity to better health, not to more illness, our mental attitude will put complaint out of the question; and as the practice spreads it will as surely decrease the tendency to illness in others as it will shorten its duration in ourselves.
Nursing at Home: A Room for the Young and the Elderly
Monday, March 9th, 2009 | home care | No Comments
As a former day-care administrator I have seen 30 children mobbing a teacher and clamoring for attention-praise for a project, a kiss for a hurt or applause for their ability to count all the way to 10. At the other end of the spectrum, one of my most haunting childhood memories is of making a Christmas visit with my Girl Scout troop to a nursing home, eager to ‘brighten a day.’ Instead I remember walking into a musty room and helping her to write a letter to her family. The quizzical look she gave me as she asked ‘What shall I write about?’ and my own awkward groping for an answer are a vision I carry with me today.
Day-care children don’t have a lack of playtime; they have a lack of one- to-one attention. And the day-care elderly don’t have a lack of time on their hands; they have a lack of someone to share and laugh with and glean excitement and energy from. Combined, dual day care, built on these needs, probably would cost no more and would disturb no one, and, in fact, it just might be the perfect solution.
Learning that a particular bird is called a sparrow or that a particular tree is called a pine is very special to children who cannot read and who have an active curiosity about the unknown elements of their world. Older adults can read and tell children about this existing world of ours, and what’s more they have the time to share with the children. While the elderly would not have the special training of the early-childhood teachers, they would be a supplement to, not a substitute for, staff. Parents and grandparents, after all, don’t need diplomas. Conversely, some day-care adults might have ambulatory problems that call out to children who have an intrinsic energy and desire to help. None is prouder than the child who has helped do something for someone else.
Nursing Home Care: Does Your Brain Lie to You?
Friday, March 6th, 2009 | home care | No Comments
THE mere idea of a brain clear from false impressions gives a sense of freedom which is refreshing.
In a comic journal, some years ago, there was a picture of a man in a most self-important attitude, with two common mortals in the background gazing at him. “What makes him stand like that?” said one. “Because,” answered the other, “that is his own idea of himself.” The truth suggested in that picture strikes one aghast; for in looking about us we see constant examples of attitudinizing in one’s own idea of one’s self. There is sometimes a feeling of fright as to whether I am not quite as abnormal in my idea of myself as are those about me.
If one could only get the relief of acknowledging ignorance of one’s self, light would be welcome, however given. In seeing the truth of an unkind criticism one could forget to resent the spirit; and what an amount of nerve-friction might be saved! Imagine the surprise of a man who, in return for a volley of abuse, should receive thanks for light thrown upon a false attitude. Whatever we are enabled to see, relieves us of one mistaken brain-impression, which we can replace by something more agreeable.
And if, in the excitement of feeling, the mistake was exaggerated, what is that to us? All we wanted was to see it in quality. As to degree, that lessens in proportion as the quality is bettered. Fortunately, in living our own idea of ourselves, it is only ourselves we deceive, with possible exceptions in the case of friends who are so used to us, or so over-fond of us, as to lose the perspective.
There is the idea of humility,–an obstinate belief that we know we are nothing at all, and deserve no credit; which, literally translated, means we know we are everything, and deserve every credit. There is the idea, too, of immense dignity, of freedom from all self-seeking and from all vanity. But it is idle to attempt to catalogue these various forms of private theatricals; they are constantly to be seen about us.
It is with surprise unbounded that one hears another calmly assert that he is so-and-so or so-and-so, and in his next action, or next hundred actions, sees that same assertion entirely contradicted. Daily familiarity with the manifestations of mistaken brain- impressions does not lessen one’s surprise at this curious personal contradiction; it gives one an increasing desire to look to one’s self, and see how far these private theatricals extend in one’s own case, and to throw off the disguise, as far as it is seen, with a full acknowledgment that there may be–probably is–an abundance more of which to rid one’s self in future. There are many ways in which true openness in life, one with another, would be of immense service; and not the least of these is the ability gained to erase false brain-impressions.
The self-condemnatory brain-impression is quite as pernicious as its opposite. Singularly enough, it goes with it. One often finds inordinate self-esteem combined with the most abject condemnation of self. One can be played against the other as a counter-irritant; but this only as a process of rousing, for the irritation of either brings equal misery. I am not even sure that as a rousing process it is ever really useful. To be clear of a mistaken brain-impression, a man must recognize it himself; and this recognition can never be brought about by an unasked attempt of help from another.
It is often cleared by help asked and given; and perhaps more often by help which is quite involuntary and unconscious. One of the greatest points in friendly diplomacy is to be open and absolutely frank so far as we are asked, but never to go beyond. At least, in the experience of many, that leads more surely to the point where no diplomacy is needed, which is certainly the point to be aimed at in friendship. It is trying to see a friend living his own idea of himself, and to be obliged to wait until he has discovered that he is only playing a part. But this very waiting may be of immense assistance in reducing our own moral attitudinizing.
Nurse Care: Beware of Professional Sympathy!
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 | home care | No Comments
One form of false sympathy is what may be called professional sympathy. Some people never find that out, but admire and get comfort from the professional sympathy of a doctor or a nurse, or any other person whose profession it is to care for those who are suffering. It takes a keen perception or a quick emergency to bring out the false ring of professional sympathy. But the hardening process that goes on in the professional sympathizer is even greater than in the case of those who do not put on a sympathetic veneer.
It seems as if there must be great tension in the more delicate parts of the nervous system in people who have hardened themselves, with or without the veneer,–akin to what there would be in the muscles if a man went about his work with both fists tightly clenched all day, and slept with them clenched all night. If that tension of hard indifference could be reached and relaxed, the result would probably be a nervous collapse, before true, wholesome habits could be established. but unfortunately it often becomes so rigid that a healthy relaxation is out of the question.
Professional sympathy is of the same quality as the selfish sympathy which we see constantly about us in men or women who sympathize because the emotion attracts admiration and wins the favor of others.
When people sympathize in their selfishness instead of sympathizing in their efforts to get free, the force of selfishness is increased, and the world is kept down to a lower standard by just so much.
Home Help: When a Smile Makes All the Difference
Friday, November 28th, 2008 | home care | No Comments
When a person can just be themselves, each day can be another undiscovered treasure to savour! When they can wear their favourite cap, or do what they really like - and when you are with them, listening to them, laughing with them - that’s what you just want and doesn’t that put a smile on your face?
So how can we look after our parents today, with full love and presence, spending time with them while still being good parents ourselves?
You have your job, your household, and your hobbies as well. So how can you look after your parents who are getting older while juggling all these things at the same time?
We think that it’s the best to stay with them and to organise your days so that you can visit them at least once a week. But you know what? They shouldn’t be left on their own for the rest of the whole week.
And as you cannot tear yourself into pieces, maybe it would be worth a thought to get them a carer. Somebody who will spend time with them and somebody who will understand them. Why not talk to Dublin Home Care Providers and see whether there whould be somebody who would match your Mum’s or Dad’s hobbies and personality?
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Home Nurse: Take Them out of the Hospital!
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 | home care | No Comments
Sure you’ve visited somebody in a hospital. Not a pleasurable feeling, was it?
So imagine that some elderly people stay months in that environment. No, we don’t want to criticise hospitals here, it’s just the opposite - we believe, and we actually know, that people there are really doing great job. The only problem is that too many sick or unhappy people will not make anyone feel better.
Another thing is then, the over load of hospitals in Ireland. And how to tackle this issues? By bringing them home!
Home nurse will look after your elderly parents just as well as they would be treated in the hospital. So why keep them too long when it’s not necessary?
So call us now, and see how our highly qualified carers could not only look after your Mum’s or Dad’s physical health, but they also could make them feel better, enjoy life even despite sickness and they would become their friends for life!
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