Deciding on senior care for your loved one can be quite trying especially if you are choosing between private care and a nursing home. Both options can provide the professional assistance and attention you want, but in-home or private care does have its advantages.
Honors Loved One’s Independence and Dignity
Being in a nursing home can take away some of your freedoms. Your loved one no longer has a choice of when to eat, take a shower or even go to bed at night. Aging in place or in-home care, however, still allows you some of these freedoms without clumping you in with an entire group of senior citizens. In-home care is less restrictive, and patients or their family members can choose who will take care of them.
Provides Personalized Care
If your loved one needs specialized care, such as for a memory loss issue or even a mobility condition, then she will probably get better care at home. It recognizes how important specialized care is and offers individualized services based on what the patient needs. Since private care is one-on-one, it is more efficient and even cuts down on travel and other costs typically accrued when a patient has to see multiple healthcare providers.
Bonds the Family Unit
Especially during an illness, family support for a loved one who is using in-home care if vitally important. With home care, you don’t have to worry about visiting hours or interrupting a meal or shower when you want to sit and visit. You know your loved one is in a safe and therapeutic environment that often lessens the caregiver’s burden. Your loved one will have some sort of privacy something not normally found in an elder care facility.
Extends the Quality of Life
At-home care prevents the premature decline of an elderly person’s life by encouraging independence and allowing your loved one to make decisions about her lifestyle and care for as long as possible. In a nursing home, that independence is all but taken away because of the type of institutionalized care given. Patients are told when to eat, when to sleep and when to take a shower.