Senior Living Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Golden Heart Summerlin

How Can Family Caregivers Understand the Emotional Needs of Seniors?

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Craig Bass

Home Care in Las Vegas NV

Addressing physical needs for seniors is really important as they age, of course, but there are emotional needs that have to be met, too. Sometimes those emotional needs are unknown even for the aging adults themselves. It’s hard to face big changes, especially when they seem to be coming too quickly. One solution that can help is to hire home care providers to assist with underlying concerns.

Addressing Loneliness and Social Isolation

One of the most common issues facing aging adults is that they’re more likely to be lonely and dealing with social isolation. This happens because their social circle often shrinks due to friends moving, passing away, or becoming homebound. Family members may also be much busier and unable to visit often. As health changes keep seniors close to home, they’re even more likely to become isolated. Finding solutions for loneliness, like bringing in home care providers, can resolve a great many issues for seniors.

Watching for Depression and Anxiety

Seniors can also experience anxiety and depression. There are lots of potential causes for depression ranging from grief and loss to feeling helpless about life. Anxiety might be caused by changes in set routines, fear of injury, or even worries about losing independence. All of these issues are very real and valid concerns, even if the likelihood of them impacting someone seem small. What matters is that the person is able to talk to someone about how they’re feeling. Often family caregivers need to just be there for their aging adults.

Protecting Against Loss of Independence

Independence is something that seniors treasure, and for good reason. Being able to continue to live on their own terms, and often in their own homes, is crucial. Often this is a reason for seniors to avoid accepting help, sometimes even from family members. Elder care providers are able to help seniors manage daily life without harming their sense of independence at all.

Preventing Loss of Identity

In the prime of life, people tend to feel as if they know who they are. Their identity might be wrapped up in what they do for a living or in their relationships with other people. As they age, they may feel as if they start to lose that identity because aging brings changes that are difficult to predict. Family caregivers can help to prevent loss of identity by encouraging seniors to participate in the activities that align with their preferences and interests.

Working through Fear of the Future

There can be a lot of fear in aging. Seniors may worry that their family members won’t be able to take care of them or that their own health will worsen significantly. Whatever their worries are, seniors need to know that they’re heard. Asking about those fears and working through solutions ahead of time can help.

Seniors have some big emotional and psychological needs and family caregivers can do a lot more for the people they love than they might think. Sometimes the key is to bring in home care providers to offer practical help where it makes sense to do so.

If you are considering home care in Las Vegas, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Companion Care At Home Reduces Stress For Seniors

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Craig Bass

Companion Care at Home in Las Vegas NV

April is Stress Awareness Month, and if your senior parent is aging in place, you should know how stress could be affecting them. Loneliness is reaching epidemic levels among seniors according to medical researchers, and as a result seniors are facing increased risks of heart attacks, strokes, depression, and anxiety. Seniors who are aging at home get a lot of benefits from being in their own home but loneliness is something that seniors who are aging in place and their families need to watch out for.

Companion care at home can help reduce the stress that seniors are by eliminating some of the loneliness that seniors struggle with. When seniors have companion care at home they have reduced stress because they have a friend they can talk to, a companion to hang out with and go places with, and someone who will be checking on them if their family lives too far away to visit regularly. Some of the ways that companion care at home reduces stress for seniors are:

Helping With Errands

Seniors can quickly get overwhelmed by the tasks that need to be done to manage a household like making a shopping list or a list of the errands that have to be done and arranging transportation. When seniors have companion care at home, they have someone who can help them make the lists and do the errands so that seniors don’t have the stress and anxiety of figuring everything out on their own and trying not to make a mistake.

Sharing Meals

Eating alone can be stressful and unpleasant. Many seniors opt to eat snacks or light meals rather than make a big meal just for one person. And as a result many seniors don’t get enough to eat. Being malnourished puts stress on the body and the mind. Sharing meals with a companion and having someone to talk with and chat with while preparing meals and washing up dishes can turn meals from a nightmare into a happy occasion for seniors.

Taking Seniors Out For Activities

Getting out into the world is important for seniors. Staying in the house can lead to anxiety and stress about going out to do things and see people. When seniors have companion care at home they have someone to encourage them to go out and do fun things. They also have someone who will take them to the movies, to a café, to go shopping, and to do other activities.

Going To Appointments

Going to appointments like medical appointments, hair appointments, or to get a medical pedicure can be very stressful for seniors. Having to get themselves to the appointment, find their way around, wait, and then reverse the process to get home can make some seniors so stressed they actually skip doing medical appointments. But with a companion who can give them encouragement and support as well as helping them physically get to the appointments and get around seniors are much more relaxed about getting to necessary appointments.

If you are considering companion care at home in Las Vegas, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Your Elderly Mom is Hoarding. What Do You Do?

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Craig Bass

Home Care Assistance in Henderson NV

Caring for an elderly parent is never easy, and you may face challenges you did not expect to face. Elderly loved ones may hoard or cherish things that belong in the trash. However, you can’t just go through your seniors home and start throwing things away. Hoarding is a disorder characterized by excessive accumulation of items, often considered to be of little or no value, and difficulty in discarding these items, even if they are no longer of use or have no sentimental value. And believe it or not, this is a real disorder and needs to be handled with care.

Home care assistance may not want to help your parents when their living situations are too dangerous. It can put the caregivers in a dangerous situation and impact how well home care assistance gives professional care. So, before you have anyone else in the house, it is crucial to go through the house with your senior and eliminate anything unnecessary. However, this isn’t always so simple, so here are some tips to help you start.

Understand the Why?

There are so many reasons why a senior would hoard things, and some of them may surprise you. Understanding what your loved one holds value to them can help you go through their stuff easier than if you don’t understand the why. Some things may provide a senior a sense of comfort and security that other things do not give them. Also, hoarding can be a way to cope with the signs of aging because it provides them with some form of control.

Can Hoarding Be Medically Treated?

When you think of treatments, you automatically assume a doctor needs to diagnose your mom or dad, and then they get medication. That may not be fully true. A senior can go to a doctor, and the underlying condition may be treated to help the hoarding indirectly. However, there is no magical cure for physical things, which is something you should keep in mind. They also may need to see a therapist on top of a doctor to figure out any mental illnesses and to work on them for mental health.

How to Help a Hoarder?

The first thing you need to do is sit and talk to them. When you understand what they are and are unwilling to give up, you can create a plan. Explain that you’d first like to get rid of the trash they don’t need and let the senior help you! This is their house, and they should always get the final say. You may be surprised that a lot of the trash is still there because a senior didn’t have the means or any way to get rid of the stuff they held onto.

Always keep your seniors involved with the plan. For example, if they have a box of stuffed animals, encourage them to donate or even give to the dementia ward in a hospital! Finding ways to offload stuff in a meaningful way will help your senior feel good about getting rid of the stuff. But remember you should be listening to all of their feelings as the plan progresses.

If you are considering home care assistance in Henderson, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Can You Really Help Your Senior to Maintain Her Independence?

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Craig Bass

Home Care Assistance in Summerlin NV

What does independence mean for your aging adult? That might be a question that you and she need to sit down and answer together. As your elderly family member grows older, she may fear that she’s losing more of her independence every day. This fear can cause her to become hyper-independent, making decisions that can lead to dangerous situations for her. But can you really help your elderly family member to maintain her independence?

Answer Safety Questions First

Anything that compromises your elderly family member’s safety is automatically a threat to her independence. Working with home care assistance can help your elderly family member to ensure that she’s addressing safety concerns before they become emergencies. Knowing that your senior has help available for safety issues helps you to feel more secure as well.

Increase Physical Activity

If your elderly family member is finding that she’s moving less and less than she used to, she may want to talk with her doctor about how much physical activity is okay for her. By becoming more active, your elderly family member increases her strength, her endurance, and her ability to remain as independent as she can. The key to sticking with any movement plan involves finding a physical activity that your senior enjoys doing so that she wants to keep going.

Keep Your Senior Socially Engaged

Social engagement is another key component of keeping your senior as independent as possible. As she grows older, it may be more difficult for her to stay as socially active as she used to be. Finding ways to make that easier for your senior to do on her own terms is essential. Elder care professionals can offer hands-on help while also making socializing easier and offering companionship themselves.

Help Her to Keep Her Brain Active

Finding ways to keep your senior’s brain firing also helps to preserve her independence. You can accomplish this goal in any number of different ways ranging from taking classes to reading more, playing games with friends, and staying social. Whatever keeps your elderly family member’s brain engaged is good for her, so find ways to incorporate more of those things into her daily life as much as possible.

Establish Routines That Support Your Senior’s Needs

Everyone has routines, even when they don’t realize they do. Your elderly family member may need to pay more conscious attention to routines as she grows older. Doing so is going to help her to hit all of her goals and targets, which is an important part of maintaining her independence. Home care assistance can be a crucial part of establishing and sticking with routines for your senior.

Remember that independence does not have to mean that your senior always does everything completely by herself. No one is completely independent, and that is true for your elderly family member, too. Having the help that she needs, when she needs it, is one of the biggest ways to help her to keep her independence for as long as possible.

Source
https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/news/20220413/americans-over-50-want-to-age-in-place-at-home-but-many-arent-prepared-poll

If you are considering home care assistance in Summerlin, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Tag: Senior Living