How Do We Know When Our Loved Ones Need Caregiving
Do you know when your loved ones need care? It is important to realize that nuclear families are rising, and children are moving out to find work or school. Our aging loved ones are left alone at home to fend for themselves. Points often overlooked, living alone without any help is not an easy task and is accompanied by various risk factors. This is because, as we age, the chances of sudden falls, injuries, accidents, and illnesses increase.
Our loved ones are in denial.
Despite this, our aging loved ones often deny any problem with them and that they can manage it all by themselves. At the same time, who wants to lose their independence of doing their routine tasks without help. But, after a certain age carrying out daily tasks seems to get more difficult with each passing day, indicating the need for “help” for our loved ones. Dealing with this day out can cause strain on you as the caregiver. Here are some great books to help you now.
Aging is inevitable for our loved ones
It is important to realize; aging is an inevitable and natural process. And the most compelling evidence is that our loved ones need help the most in this phase of life. However, many of us fail to recognize those signs that show our necessity for proper care. We need to understand that as we age, our physical capability and mental faculties undergo a decline. Finally, this is when the need for help almost becomes inevitable for our loved ones.
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Assistance with daily living
To put it differently, from running errands to attending doctor’s appointments, bill payments to monthly groceries, which we did in our younger years with ease, will now require help. For this reason, learning to recognize the early signs that indicate our loved ones need assistance can go a long way in preventing major health concerns and can also prevent our loved ones from accidents. For this reason, hiring a caregiver or asking our children to help us with our daily chores would be a good idea.
Signs that indicate our loved ones need caregiving
In the first place, our physical capabilities and mental faculties take a back step when we age. In addition, the following is a checklist of some of the common signs that indicate it’s the time our loved ones need care and assistance with our daily activities.
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Getting forgetful and feel lost
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Forgetting appointments and miss taking medications
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Become forgetful and tend to misplace things
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Miss out on important dates and events
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Beginning to trust people we don’t know and sometimes even end; up paying them money.
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Getting confused and struggle with monthly bills
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Unable to handle both household chores and your social life
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Become depressed easily
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Begin to stay sad and avoid meeting people
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Nothing in life seems to interest you any longer
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Avoid activities that you previously enjoyed
Notes for caregivers
In addition to the above-mentioned signs. There are certain physical as well as medical changes experienced by our loved ones. These signs include:
- Feeling lethargy and the need for more sleep
- Frequent falls
- Difficulty in doing personal chores
- Unable to take proper care of oneself
- A change in eating habits
- Difficulty in eating and dressing up independently
- Experiencing difficulty in cleaning the house single-handedly
- Requiring daily or weekly medical assistance in the form of therapies or dialysis
- To be taken weekly for doctor’s appointments
- Medications need to be evaluated or changed
- Requiring medical equipment such as an oxygen tank
Do our aging loved ones need help or not?
As a matter of fact, it is pretty natural for children to worry about their aging loved ones. Also, the worry stems from the fact that their loved ones have reached that phase of their life. In addition, where things are usually not the same, they used to be a few years back. Not to mention, while many seniors comfortably age in their homes, many face lots and lots of problems during this phase of their life. On the positive side, deciding on whether loved ones need help during old age is extremely necessary to prevent unforeseen problems. Finally, the following are various warning signs that indicate it’s time our loved ones need caregiving.
- Becoming confused while performing simple tasks for daily living
- There is unexplained sudden weight loss
- Change in dietary habits
- Poor personal hygiene
- Change in personality or behavior
- Poor memory
- Loss of balance while walking
- The house is dirty and smells of urine
- There is clutter
- Appliances such as stove are left on
- Hair is unkept and improper grooming
Conclusion
A point often overlooked, the major mistake many children make is that they wait for some major change to arrange for caregivers. For this reason, taking action when any of the above-mentioned warning signs take place can help our loved ones with many major health issues. Lastly, arranging for caregivers at home itself can give our loved ones their independence along with the help they need. Initiating timely actions can help our loved ones age gracefully. Check out this post that is from caregiving experts. Also, check out this article on the signs.
Overseeing this can cause you to stress because you can’t be in 2 places at one time: taking care of your business and taking care of your loved one. Look into hiring some help. This will allow you to get some rest and make sure your loved one is properly cared for.
Or maybe you want to spend more time with your loved one while taking a break from some redundant business tasks like sending out emails, returning calls, or organizing files. Let’s chat about how I can be of service to you so you can take care of your business and your loved one.
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