There are a lot of barriers for some people when it comes to finding the right senior care. The pandemic has exposed some of those barriers and even created new ones. Luckily, some of the barriers that have always existed were made more public during recent months. While these are never good things, bringing light to them is good because that means that they are more likely to be addressed and rectified.
Cost is often cited as a big barrier to senior care. Unfortunately, this has been a problem for a while. The cost of care keeps going up, making it harder and harder for people to afford it. Luckily, insurance companies are aware of this and have made changes to help people. Still, this doesn’t always have the big positive impact that is hoped for.
Another barrier to senior care is not fully understanding it. Many people neglect care because they don’t want to go into a nursing home. But there are other types of care that are not as disruptive as this that can be used to help the elderly.
Some research indicates that the biggest barrier to finding high quality senior care during the pandemic has been social isolation. People that are on their own without an informal support structure in place were a lot more likely to slip through the cracks and not get connected with the help that they needed to stay healthy.
Unfortunately, this has been an ongoing issue for years. There are a lot of seniors that don’t have the help that they need for precisely this reason. This is why community is so important. During COVID, our communities disappeared. It was necessary to help slow the spread of the virus, but it came with a heavy cost. Technology and other things should be used more heavily in the future to connect socially isolated people with the outside world.
These things might be huge barriers for the population at large, but you don’t need to let them impact your family or those that you care about. Knowing that they are risks is often enough to help people find the encouragement to address them before they become major issues. If you find yourself in a situation where you or someone in your family is struggling with one or more of the issues mentioned above (or something that isn’t addressed here!), please feel free to reach out to someone. If you’re in the Bay Area, we would be honored to be that someone for you. But regardless of who you reach out to, it’s important to find the help that your family needs to thrive.
You don’t need to address senior care, barriers to finding it, or the pitfalls that occur after senior care has been located, on your own. There are a lot of community resources out there for you to make this part of your life a lot easier. The difficult part is knowing where to start. But once you make those first couple phone calls, connecting the people that you love with the care that they need becomes a lot more realistic.
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