As your parents grow older, you need to come to terms that they cannot live alone sooner or later. When this sign becomes apparent, it is time to decide on their future. Home care is the best option. Your parents prefer staying in a familiar environment and love their independence. That's why it is more appealing for a senior to agree to the idea of a living-in caregiver instead of moving to an assisted living facility or nursing home. Through assistance from a compassionate caregiver, your loved one can live in a safe condition while preserving their independence and dignity.

What Is In-Home Care?

Aging is inevitable. You cannot stop your biological clock, and just like many, there'll come a time when extra help performing daily living tasks will come in handy. According to an article published on U.S News, approximately seventy percent of people aged at least sixty-five cannot care for themselves without help. For some, help means moving to nursing homes or assisted living facilities. For most, aging at their house is a more attractive option, thanks to senior home-based care. As the name suggests, home care is the care offered to aged persons in their home, allowing them to stay at their home instead of moving into institutional-based, long-term, and residential facilities. The caregivers provide a wide range of supervision, personal care, or companionship services in your home's convenience or comfort.

Professional caregivers, including therapists, aides, and nurses, offer both long-term care and short-term care in your home, depending primarily on your needs.

Types of In-Home Care

Not every living-in caregiver provides all categories of home-based care services. The guide below gives a summary of the various home care services. Care is tailored to meet your needs and might entail services from at least one of the categories described below. Consulting with your experienced Los Angeles caregiver to discuss preferences and needs could help determine what suits you best.

While these forms of home care might meet various needs, they have one goal: to offer more independent and happier living for persons receiving care. They also give peace of mind and support the families.

Common types include:

  • Companionship and personal care — It assists with daily activities like grooming, household tasks, meal preparation, and cooking to promote safety and independence. They are a non-medical, assistive, companion, home health aide, homemaker, and senior care services.
  • Private duty nursing care — Hourly and long-term nursing home care for persons living with disabilities, chronic diseases, and injuries. These services include home-based nursing care, ventilator care, catastrophic care, skilled nursing, shift nursing, adult nursing, and hourly nursing.
  • Home health care is the short-term, doctor-directed care tailored to help you recover or prevent an injury, hospital stay, or illness. They include visiting nurse services, intermittent skilled home care, and Medicare-approved home care.

Who Might Benefit from Living-in Caregiving Services?

Most people and families benefit from home-based care services. These include senior citizens and persons who have been discharged from hospital and require assistance for a while. Other persons who might benefit include people suffering from chronic conditions or diseases like:

  • Type II and Type I diabetes
  • Cancer
  • Cardiovascular health conditions
  • Parkinson disease
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Any person could benefit from home-based care. AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) reports that approximately thirty million Americans above fifty years need caregiving annually. However, the immense majority of the beneficiaries are elderly persons. Home caregiving significantly impacts the population demographics, permitting the aged to safely and comfortably remain in homes. The service is for a person who requires help but lacks the support networks to offer the necessary resources.

A living-in caregiver can help a person who has suffered an unexpected disease or traumatic injuries. The services are instrumental, especially if your loved ones can't take time off from their work or live far from your family.

Benefits of Home-Based Care: Why You Should Give it a Try

A vital component of home-based care is ensuring you feel comfortable and secure. When you could stay in your home, you feel better physically and mentally.

Remaining at your homes means the familiar surrounds you, creating a sense of freedom and security.

Here are a few benefits to consider:

  • Services are personalized — An assisted living facility might have perks, and when you require specific care, your needs might be overlooked. On the other hand, home-care clients receive one-on-one, personalized, and high-quality care. Your caregiver knows you on a relational level and can serve you best.
  • You can still engage in the activities you love — Do you love gardening, traveling, or walking your pet around the block? If you stay in your home, you can participate in the activities with your qualified caregiver's help.
  • Offers peace of mind to the family—As a senior citizen's son or daughter, it is okay to be concerned about your parent's well-being and safety. When your parents can remain at your home, the stress of life-altering changes is not imminent. You are confident their health and safety are in good hands.
  • Family involvement — A living-in caregiver helps your family be a larger part of your care plan, and your loved ones can communicate directly with the caregiver. That way, the caregiver will offer them frequent updates about care and health.
  • Pet ownership — Staying at home means you will not part with your pet. For an elderly individual, pet companionship can ease loneliness and lower the risk of a heart condition. The caregiver will allow you to enjoy the advantages of pet companionship even when you require help taking care of your pet.
  • Free up more time for your family caregivers — Home-based care provides you as a family caregiver more time to focus on your personal life and career. If you are a full-time caregiver, the service could be a fundamental respite. It offers you an opportunity to breathe before returning to your caregiving responsibilities.

What Type of Help Does a Home-based Caregiver Offer?

It is worth realizing that in-home nursing care is different from senior in-home care. Living-in caregivers don't offer medical or nursing services. While nursing services are required at home, generally, these services need a doctor's prescription or order that outlines the type of medical care you need at home. Fortunately, you can receive both forms of care from one service provider.

Typical home care services include:

Alzheimer's Care

Caring for a person with dementia needs a person-centered approach, precise to their ability and needs. The patient deals with memory loss, affecting medication adherence, self-care, food consumption, and general behavior.

The patient's needs change as their condition progresses through various stages. If your parent has been diagnosed with dementia, you require an expert to assist you. Any skilled in-home care service provider will go an extra mile and offer holistic therapeutic care like:

  • Yoga
  • Validation therapy
  • Clinical therapy
  • Medication
  • Aromatherapy
  • Music therapy
  • Assistance with the daily routine
  • Paying bills

Personal Care Help

A home care aide can offer help with different daily living activities like grooming, dressing, continence, laundry, bathing, and grocery shopping.

Moreover, the personal care assistant can prepare meals, offer light housekeeping services, and escort your loved one to essential business appointments, doctor visits, and social events. If you want to leave for a couple of hours, days, or overnight, home care can ease your worry, mainly if the caregiver is familiar to your parents because they offer regular services.

Companionship Services

As the name suggests, the caregiver provides company to the older adult, especially those isolated at home due to cognitive impairment, frailty, or living alone.

A skilled caregiver will:

  • Drive the aged person to appointments
  • Safeguard a person unstable on their feet
  • Play cards
  • Read aloud
  • Keep an eye on their client
  • Act as an extra set of eyes, feet, and hands for your parent

Companionship is ideal for a person who spends a lot of their time alone and requires assistance. Additionally, it improves movements, offers valuable social benefits, and decreases isolation.

Signs that Your Loved One Requires a Living-in Caregiver

Different persons age differently. While one individual might live independently in their 70's, another might require care several years before then. Here are signs that could show that your aged parent requires home-based care.

Change in Personality and Appearance

Changes in personal hygiene, excessive weight loss or gain, putting on dirty clothes, and bad feeding habits could indicate mental and physical status changes. It can also signify your parent's functional abilities are declining.

Depression and loneliness alongside personality changes, such as mood swings, isolation, and disconnect from loved ones, could be an indicator of requiring help.

Inability to Perform Daily Tasks

When your parents cannot perform their daily tasks independently, additional assistance is required. It could involve confusion or uncertainty when doing the chores.

Have Accidents

If your sick parent has challenges rising or has fallen, seeking a living-in caregiver should be your priority. After there has been a fall, the odds are another one will occur. In the meantime, identify all fall hazards, including clutter and falls, and if possible, remove them.

Memory Challenges

Forgetting, among other behaviors linked to memory loss, could indicate that home care is a necessity. Some of the signs include failing to keep up with bills and mails, missing essential appointments, forgetting to take medication, and increased confusion.

Loss of Interest in Hobbies and Activities

Has your dad or mom's previously well-tended garden been neglected? Has your parents given up sedentary activities like watching their favorite TV show, reading, or knitting?

Loss of interest in activities and hobbies could be a sign of an underlying problem. While the caregiver cannot solve the mental or medical health issue, they could make sure:

  • Your loved one complies with the treatment plan, has companionship and social interaction, and
  • Could offer the required help so that your loved one can still participate in their favorite pastimes.

Challenges Maintaining Their Home

Challenges keeping up with house chores is another sign that your aged parent requires help. They might be unable to do everyday tasks like before because of cognitive decline, depression, or mobility issues.

Indicators that the senior is struggling with house chore include:

  • Excess clutter
  • Dirty dishes
  • Grime, dirt, and dust in places which used to be spotlessly clean

Any experienced in-home care service services in Los Angeles offer housekeeping services like:

  • Changing linens and beddings
  • Doing dishes after meals
  • Laundry
  • Cleaning appliances, bathroom, and countertops
  • Sweeping floors
  • Throwing away garbage

What is the Cost of Hiring a Living Caregiver? Does Medicare Cover It?

Assessing and estimating the cost of home-based senior care is tricky, given the numerous services available. Moreover, several factors are considered, including the geographic location and the degree of care required.

Most living-in caregivers charge hourly rather than monthly or annually, and every service provider will have their cost ranges and fee structures. Therefore, you should research widely.

Often people believe that hiring a living-in caregiver is more high-end than it is, but they underestimate nursing home expenses. The opposite is true, depending primarily on the degree of assistance. For instance, home care takes away the necessity to move into a community or facility setting, which cuts down on costs.

Generally, families cover home care out of pocket, although some insurance plans cover the charges. In 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publicized that Medicare Advantage benefits will take in non-skilled in-home senior care services with assistance with daily living activities alongside health care offered by medical practitioners starting in 2019. Kindly check with your insurance provider for details.

Find Compassionate Home Care Near Me

Aging in style in Los Angeles could present numerous challenges for your loved one. While some seniors need part-time help with meal preparation and exercise, others have chloric diseases and benefit significantly from home caregiving. Mom's Home Care is a leader in the industry for good reasons. Our care plans are personalized. Our caregivers are qualified and receive training in elderly care as new development arises. Moreover, we provide care for patients with Dementia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. To learn more about our services, call us today at 323-244-4789.