One of the reasons why change has been so slow to come to the senior care industry is because there are not enough advocates for the elderly. This makes sense when you think about it: those with advanced disabilities or progressive dementia don’t necessarily have the ability to aggressively stick up for themselves. Luckily, there are many caring and compassionate individuals out there that are speaking up for their loved ones and fighting to make things like in-home care more easily accessible to the average senior citizen. Still, the system is not perfect and there is always a lot more that can be done.
Whether or not you do so in an official capacity is up to you, but there are plenty of chances for you to be a senior advocate for your elderly loved ones. Whether it’s just speaking up when helping them with their medical appointments, talking to your community’s social and senior services representatives, or helping other seniors in your neighborhood make sure that they are getting enough help around the house, there are many things that you can do on your own. As someone that loves your mom or dad and would do anything to help them, you might already be doing some of these things. You might have already noticed that there are tons of little things that can be done to make their lives just that much better. Finding a good caregiver is just the start; improving the quality of their care and every other aspect of their life is a never ending struggle.
And then, of course, there are more official positions. Many nursing homes and assisted living facilities have volunteer spokespeople called ombudsmen. These are people that are allowed to officially speak up at board meetings and the like to ensure that all of their family member’s, and any other residents’, needs and wants are being sufficiently addressed. They also can help to brainstorm ideas to improve the quality of living within these facilities. These positions are non-paid, but they do a lot of good toward helping you to help others. After all, isn’t that part of what you are doing already as you navigate the senior care system for the people that you love?
If you see something that can be done better, nothing is going to be done about it unless people act. Usually, systems do not change until a group of people come together and force that change to happen. There’s no reason why you can’t act and help be the catalyst for that change. It will help improve your parent’s care, and it will help to improve the lives of countless others, too. There’s nothing that says you need to be a doctor or a government official to help improve senior care. Start small, speak up, and focus on what you would want for your own care if you were in your mom’s position. Sometimes, just mentally switching roles is enough to get the ball rolling. We usually only see things from our perspective, and that’s the big problem with making changes to senior care.
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