Aging family members face unique healthcare challenges and emotional journeys as their needs change. Over time, preventative medical care becomes more difficult and more vital to their quality of life. In addition to that, many elderly people begin to suffer from mental illness in addition to the emotional strain of aging.
No matter how your family has decided to handle the aging process, whether your loved ones are aging in place, relocating to a facility or a family member’s care, remember that their care needs are unique. Nurses and other medical professionals who specialize in senior care are the very best resource to help you, and your loved ones, navigate the aging process.
The Unique Challenges Faced By Aging Loved Ones
Healthcare for aging family members requires an integrated approach to many areas of their lives.
Health
As we get older, parts of our body often lose functionality, gain pain, or generally misbehave. It’s a natural part of aging, but it’s very difficult to know what to expect. Knowing the right changes to make to a living environment, as well as knowing the kinds of physical exercise and therapy to undergo to reduce pain and keep movement are challenges that require expert knowledge as we age.
Dementia, alzheimer’s, and other conditions also become a concern, and those situations make every aspect of an elderly person’s life more complicated. Deteriorating mental health often makes professional help an absolute requirement, as the difficulties involved with dementia and related illnesses are particularly complex, especially in relation to memory, love, and family. Specialized caregivers can prepare your family for what to expect and provide ongoing support.
Mobility and Livability
One major challenge that we face during aging is that reduced mobility makes living in the same places and ways that we’re used to more difficult. Multi-layer houses, apartments higher than the first floor and buildings without specific disability accommodations become difficult to navigate.
When an elderly family member wishes to age in place, it can take a lot of effort, forethought, and expense to make that home accessible for them, especially if it has multiple floors.
Emotional Toll
Aging, with or without dementia, can take an emotional toll. As parents become more and more dependent on their children and grandchildren for help, the dynamic between family members begins to change. This is just one of a number of major life changes that can take an emotional toll on the elderly.
Becoming less physically independent, retiring from the workforce, having trouble with memory, and other major changes in a senior’s life can potentially cause emotional distress. As people age, they can often become more isolated as their peers and friends pass away with greater frequency.
Financial Concerns
Aging family members also have a number of unique financial concerns as the end of their life approaches. Leaving work often means that budgets become tighter while medical expenses increase. Some people need to rely on social programs because they can’t survive on their retirement alone, and financial concerns can cause a great toll on health and wellness.
Of the many expenses that your family might face related to an aging loved one, a senior care specialist is one that shouldn’t be overlooked.
How Senior Care Specialists Help
Preventative Care
The “downward spiral” becomes a significant worry as bodies begin to age. One health issue can lead to another, problems that would be minor for a younger person can become much more serious. Preventative care is about nipping problems in the bud before they become a major nuisance. So it’s important to rely on someone like a nurse who specializes in senior care. This type of caregiver knows what issues to expect and can help your loved ones combat them before they impact quality of life.
Understanding the Perspective
Elderly people develop a unique perspective as they look back at their lives, the development of their families, and think about what the future looks like without them in it. Even seniors with deteriorating mental health have understandable perspectives, and senior care specialists become experts in understanding these emotional states, communicating with your loved ones, and also explaining the complex thoughts and feelings to younger family members. Often, seeking a long term or repeat caregiver that can become a lifelong service provider for members of the family can be a huge help.
Knowing the Logistics
Aging is complicated. It can be marked by emotional, physical, and financial difficulty. There are a lot of moving parts that have to be managed in order to transition a loved one to the kind of care, and the kind of living space they need. Senior care specialists will be able to advise families about what physical capabilities a senior has, and which changes to their living situation are most urgent. Whether they need a chair lift, walking assistance devices, sitting showers, non-slippery floors… And so on. Many of these changes directly affect the physical safety of an elderly loved one, so it’s important to seek the best advice available.
Improved Quality of Life
Specialized care that’s responsive to the needs of a patient is better for quality of life. Especially in cases where seniors decide to age in place or move in with a family member, seeking help and consultation from these specialists becomes vital in knowing how to help your aging family members feel happy, healthy, dignified and loved.
It can be difficult to find the right care provider. Nurses are in huge demand due to the aging of a large portion of the population. The good news is that the industry is responding by doing the best to make train more nurses and give them more freedom to practice outside of traditional healthcare facilities.
Removing Negative Emotions From the Equation
It can be difficult for people to accept being taken care of by their own families. This comes from different emotional places. Perhaps they don’t want to be a burden, or feel frustrated at having to be taken care of by their own children. There are plenty of reasons that families don’t make the best caregivers, through no fault of their own. This is one of the biggest reasons to seek a professional caregiver, even if family members take on the primary caregiving responsibilities.
Conclusion
One of the hardest things for people to admit is that their loved ones might be beyond their capability to care for. There’s nothing wrong with that, at all, and a family can remain the primary caregivers of their elder loved ones. Professional caregivers can make all the difference, however, between a smooth and disastrous living situation transition.
Brooke Faulkner is a senior rights advocate and mother of two in the Pacific Northwest. She loves spending time with friends and family at the assisted living facility near her home, and has collected more stories there than she can count.
