Home Health Care: On one hand, you have home care. On the other, you have home health care.
They’re not the same. People often mistake the two, but they’re not the same. How can you tell when home health care is needed and when it’s not the right choice?
What Home Health Care Services Offer
Home health care covers medically-necessitated services that take special skills. They’re services needed when a person recovers from a disease or health condition or has surgery and needs nursing care while healing at home.
After a surgery, someone might need a nurse to help with wound care, IV medications, and injectable medications. While your parent’s doctor may feel you can some things on your own, you might not be comfortable or confident enough. A skilled nurse knows the signs of infections and other problems and can communicate them effectively.
Following a stroke, your parent may be unable to walk, talk, or eat. If your mom or dad goes home with a feeding tube, it’s asking a lot of you to help with the care and feedings. Again, you’re not trained and will be going essentially untrained into this new role. You won’t be licensed for physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and you may not want to transport your parent to and from the therapists’ offices each day or week.
If your parent is diagnosed with diabetes and needs to learn how to eat the right foods, cook the right meals, take insulin, or check blood sugar levels, learning all of that at home from a specialist helps. Learning diabetes care at home is less stressful than going into an office.
How Home Care Differs
Home care is different. It’s not designed to help with medical aspects. It helps with daily activities and maintaining a level of independence. Home care aides help by doing the housework, cooking meals, and driving your parent to and from medical offices.
With home care, your mom or dad can have a caregiver to do the laundry each week, help them with personal care and grooming, and bring in the mail. Your parents may always need home care, or they may need the services long enough to recover and get back to their usual routines.
Talk to a home health care specialist about your dad’s health care needs. You should also talk to his doctor. With input from his doctor and a conversation with a home health care expert, you’ll be ready to arrange the services your dad needs most as he recovers or heals.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring Home Health Care in San Francisco, CA, contact the friendly staff at Home Care Professionals today.
Call (866)-940-4855
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