If your elderly loved one requires frequent attention and support, you may feel a responsibility to provide for them. Yet this impression puts a heavy burden on you. Instead, connect with a long-term elderly nurse care service for help and treatment. Long-term elder care occurs in the senior’s home, thus avoiding the move to a medical facility. Moreover, you can choose a care type that suits your senior’s condition.
Folks who need such services in Kent County, DE, can turn to Coastal Home Care. We are the region’s provider of elder, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and more care services. Our trained and certified staff is committed to our patients’ livelihoods, which our previous clients rave about in testimonials. To learn more, schedule a consultation through our website or call our Delaware line: (302) 752-1800.
Below, we describe long-term care practice in general, the specific types available, and the risk factors that increase one’s odds of requiring these services:
What is Long-Term Care?
Long-term care encompasses diverse treatments and activities, so its practice may look quite different for two patients. Nevertheless, its purpose always revolves around supporting the elderly or ailing individuals. While senior live-in facilities offer long-term care, Coastal Home Care aims to help patients continue living where they choose.
Most often, fulfilling this goal entails supporting daily living activities (also referred to as personal care): bathing, dressing, using the toilet, making meals, and more. Since timeworn or chronically ill seniors often struggle with these tasks, a caregiver will help them.
Long-term care may also incorporate medication management and other services. With such options in mind, you and your family should meet with your senior loved one and discuss their needs. Additionally, before hiring a service provider, interview caregiver candidates and research their offerings.
Available Types of Long-Term Care
As mentioned earlier, home-based long-term care services tend to revolve around personal care. However, further options include:
- Home health care: Where standard home care eschews medical treatments, home health care incorporates them. This option requires a doctor’s order and a trained professional—such as a nurse or CNA—to deliver it. It may incorporate physical, occupational, or speech therapy.
- Homemaker services: Another name for personal care, homemaker services revolve around a professional supporting a senior with daily living activities.
- Transportation services: Since many seniors struggle to drive a car, transportation services fill this critical gap. They allow patients to run errands, keep up with friends and family, and attend doctor’s appointments.
Risk Factors that Necessitate Long-Term Care
While we cannot say for certain whether a given individual will need long-term care, we can outline risk factors that escalate any individual’s odds of requiring these services. Such factors include:
- Advanced age: It almost goes without saying, but the chances an individual will require care and support rise with their age.
- Gender: Since women tend to live longer than men, they also require long-term care at higher rates.
- Relationship status: Single people more often need care than individuals in committed relationships.
- Lifestyle: Unhealthy habits increase one’s risk of ill health. People who smoke, drink alcohol, and fail to exercise daily have a higher vulnerability to diseases late in life, which in turn require care.
- Health and family history: Beyond lifestyle choices, folks who suffer from chronic health conditions—or whose family history includes heart disease, cancer, and other serious illnesses—also have an increased need for long-term care.
If your elder has any such risk factors as well as symptoms of age struggles, speak to them about long-term care.
Professional Elderly Nurse Services Available in Kent County, DE!
If you have a senior loved one in Kent County, DE, who needs increasing amounts of care and support, turn to Coastal Home Care for elderly nurse services. We offer professional long-term care options to suit all lifestyles. Plus, our team operates in our patients’ homes, helping them retain their independence and chosen lifestyle. For more information on our options and nursing team, call our Delaware line at (302) 752-1800 or schedule a consultation today.