No matter one’s stature or wealth, age creeps up to everyone. As a result of the aging body and mind, tasks that used to seem like child’s play begin to get tougher on the elderly. For many, it tends to reach such a stage that the situation becomes burdensome for everyone. If the elderly person is living alone, they are often without help and support and unable to manage their daily activities properly. On the other hand, if they are living with family, it turns the role of the family members to caregivers, which takes its toll.
It is at this juncture that personal care assistance might be considered for the elderly. To clarify, personal care assistance would not mean relocation to an institution. For people who are in relatively good health without any debilitating physical or mental illnesses, it is best for them to continue living in their own homes, where they can be in a familiar environment, and with family support (Ashley et al., 2011). However, personal care assistance would include the assistance providing the support and care needed for the elderly.
Personal care assistance is often provided via a home health aide, who would be available for the needs of the elderly person. The home health aide can provide support on a part-time or full-time basis. For patients who are in relatively better health, they may not need round-the-clock care, while others would feel more comfortable with constant help and support.
The primary benefit of personal care assistance via a home health aide is that it benefits all the relevant stakeholders. The various stakeholders’ interests can be described as:
- Patient and their family: The patient would not need to relocate to an unfamiliar institution, away from their family, and yet can get all the support they would receive at such an institution. It creates a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario for them.
- Healthcare professional: The professional providing the home health care is also in a uniquely beneficial position due to the increased interaction and focus with only one patient (Haput, 2022). Usually, in an institutional setting, they would have to manage multiple patients simultaneously. This would result in overworking, and they would also be unable to remember the smaller aspects of care for every patient. The home health aide system allows them to provide more personalized care.
- Healthcare institutions: For healthcare institutions, it is a beneficial scenario because it allows them to have a patient without having to spend extensive resources and space for them. For healthy older people who can live in their own homes, allowing them to do so opens up space in the institutions to admit the patients who genuinely need the same.
Thus, as this discussion shows, personal care assistance is the way of the future. It allows the patients and their families to experience relief in the form of additional support from a knowledgeable healthcare professional who would be specifically attuned to the needs of the patient. On the other hand, it also allows the elderly to continue living in their home, allowing the family many good years together. For these reasons, the home health aide system must be more widely applied, so that the benefits of the same can be enjoyed by more and more families.
First Care Home Services provides assistance to help in preventing caregiver role strain. Whether you need 24-hour care or a minimum of 5 hours daily or weekly, we can assist with your needs. Our nurses are trained to assist patients and family members to live a balanced life.
Works Cited
Ashley, A. et al. (2011). Home-care-aides voices from the field: Job experiences of personal support specialists – the Maine home care worker retention study. Home Healthcare Nurse, 28.
Haput, A. (2022). How does home health care work? Forbes.
