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Senior Care At Home: Starting to Plan
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Promising to "do whatever it takes" to care for a senior at
home is often a family's first impulse when age begins to take its
toll on a loved one. Of course it can be done, and many families
do so very successfully. Generally, these are the families that
have done some realistic pre-planning before committing to keeping
a senior at home.
When planning for senior home care, family caregivers are most
successful when they approach the planning process in the same way
a professional geriatric care manager would begin. There are three
very important pieces of information that every professional will
want to know before starting the home care planning process:
1. Your Senior's Medical Condition: What are all of the
medical conditions that have been identified, and what is the
prognosis for each of these conditions? Knowing what your elder is
dealing with medically, and what to expect as these conditions
progress, will tell you whether long term care at home is
realistic. Many of our seniors are not so good at telling us the
unvarnished truth about what the doctor said, so if your elder
agrees, go along to the next doctor appointment. This way you can
get all your questions answered and you will have a clearer
picture of what to expect from what is known today.
2. Your Elder's Full Financial Picture: Elder care at home
is not necessarily the least expensive alternative, although it
may look that way at first. As the need for help at home grows, so
do the costs. Although Medicare will cover the costs of some
professional medical care at home, most seniors will really need
more non-medical help. Non-medical home care is the term used for
help with housekeeping, meal preparation, transportation, basic
hygiene, companionship and medication monitoring. Count on paying
a professional non-medical home care provider between $12 and $20
per hour, depending on where your senior is located in Texas.
Certain home renovations may also be necessary to keep a senior
safely at home. At the very least, grab bars and other safety
equipment in the bathroom will be necessary. Doors may also need
to be widened or ramps installed so a wheelchair can be used.
If your elder is to be at home alone regularly, adding an
emergency response unit will provide some peace of mind that help
can be called even if the telephone is out of reach.
3. Is Your Senior Willing to Accept Non-Family Help? Very
few family members can leave jobs and family responsibilities to
manage a senior's care at home full time. Sooner or later, almost
everyone will have to turn to outside help to make home care
viable. When that time comes, if your elderly family member will
not be willing to accept help from anyone but you, then home care
will probably not be successful long-term.
Most professionals recommend that you begin using supplemental
help before you think you really need it. If you wait until you
have reached the breaking point, it will be much more difficult to
get your "spoiled" senior to accept anyone but you.
Successfully caring for a senior at home requires that everyone,
senior and family, talk openly and honestly about both the
financial and the personal facts as early as possible. If the
medical prognosis indicates that a high level of professional care
will some day be necessary, then perhaps long term care at home
may not be medically realistic. If the available funds won't
stretch to cover the cost of necessary home renovations and
eventual professional home care, it's important to know before
making a promise that can't be kept. If a senior refuses to accept
the fact that eventually an "outsider" will be needed to help with
care, it's better to know early that calling in professional home
care assistance might involve an unpleasant battle even if the
funds are available.
Knowing the answers to the three critical questions about
medical status, financial resources, and your senior's
willingness to accept help are the most important keys to
planning realistically for long term senior care at home.
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