A recent experience made me think twice about in-home care. My grandmother, who is in her late 80s, had been receiving in-home care when she was injured and ended up needing surgery to repair a broken leg. She was in the hospital for a week, and then moved to a rehabilitation center until she was able to get around more easily. Eventually, she was moved into a long term care unit within a nursing home because of her inability to walk around the house on her own.
The unfortunate part of this is that besides an injured leg, she is in pretty good physical health. In-home care would have been more than enough to meet her physical needs, but she would have needed care 24 hours per day because of the layout of her home, and that was not something that her caregivers were able to do.
The lesson to take away from this is that in-home care should be chosen with great deliberation. If you choose an inferior service for your loved one, you might find yourself in a similar situation. Obviously, it depends upon your individual situation, but the moral of the story is the same; when you go with a service that only has a partial list of features that are provided to their clientele, you are potentially putting yourself in a situation where your future can become uncertain. What happened with my grandma was a freak accident and could not have been anticipated, but that doesn’t mean that you should not try and plan for emergency situations. If a service that had been able to provide around the clock care had been selected in the first place, the issue would not have been a major one. Instead, she is not in her ideal location, and not as happy as she could be.
The truth is, a lot of people in much better health find themselves in nursing homes and they don’t necessarily need to be. Even after an illness or injury, a nursing home might not be the best solution. Most people that need some sort of extended senior care can have each one of their needs met completely through in-home care. And, on top of this, most people find that they are happier receiving one to one attention within the comforts of their own residence. It is definitely up to your personal preferences, but most people prefer to stay at home rather than be relocated to a new place.
In-home care would be the top choice for my grandmother in an ideal world, but because of the combination of the layout of her home, a subpar insurance policy, and the care service that was originally chosen, it was not meant to be. I know that she would be happier at her own house, but for now, this is unavoidable. But it doesn’t need to be so for other people. Good planning through insurance selection, home modifications if necessary, and more importantly, a top quality service, can usually avoid this problem, ensuring the best care in the best location.
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