senior health Archives - All Heart Home Care

Social Distancing & The Holidays: How to Lift the Spirit of Your Elderly Loved Ones This Season

November 27, 2020 Diego Baez

It’s no secret that older people are more prone to depression during the holidays. Sometimes this happens due to health conditions or financial problems. Moreover, many elderly people are still isolated because of Covid-19. It also has a negative impact on older people.

Therefore, it is vital to try to cheer up loved ones and improve their mental state during the holidays. Today, we will be sharing practical advice on how to lift the spirit of your elderly loved ones, taking into account social distancing rules to keep everyone around you safe.

Decreasing the Risk

Nowadays, family gatherings carry significant risks for older people. However, nothing prevents you from seeing the whole family using a video-conferencing app. Meanwhile, if you decide to get together in a close family circle, then be sure to take into account the norms of social distancing on the way home. This also includes washing hands and using protective masks.

These simple and useful recommendations can significantly reduce the risk of contracting the virus and allow you to enjoy simple home joys with your family.

Enjoying the Christmas Lights

If your seniors still drives, then advise them to tour around the area and enjoy the bright Christmas lights. You can also make a video about how you and your children decorate the house and share it with your loved ones using instant messengers or social networks.

Even a simple family photo that you take with your smartphone can cheer up seniors and give them a feeling of warmth and care. It would be useful to send a good old postcard for your senior loved one. Sign it by hand and add some warm wishes from all the family members. To make it unique and personalized, send a postcard by mail to congratulate your senior loved one in an old-fashioned way.

Discover new places together

If you want to take your elderly loved ones out in a park or a shopping center, be extremely careful. Large crowds are one of the main reasons for the spread of Covid-19.

To avoid unreasonable risks, offer your senior loved one to try the Window Swap application instead. It will be a great way to refresh the environment for an older person who has been isolated in a home due to the pandemic.

The app allows people to watch the lovely views from the window in different parts of the world and listen to picturesque cities’ sounds. The app is excellent for changing a person’s mental and emotional environment or encouraging a senior to learn new things about the world. The point is to reduce the emotional stress on your senior loved ones and mentally transfer them to unique places that can give many pleasant sensations.

Whichever tips you choose, keep in mind that it should help your senior family members ease the burden of loneliness and provide them with your warmth and care. More importantly, remember to support loved ones not only during the Christmas and New Year holidays but throughout the year.

For more tips on how to stay safe this holiday season, contact All Heart Homecare Agency for the best advice on how to properly care for your loved one every day.

Kindness and Professionalism: Does Your Home Care Attendant Have Both?

October 5, 2020 Diego Baez

Caring for elderly relatives is a rather acute question that often requires quick solutions. That is why private pay home care is so popular nowadays. However, it is not so easy to trust your elder relative to an unknown person due to numerous reasons, especially if you have never received services before. Fortunately, professional home care attendant know how to make the adaptation process run smoothly.

What is the professional home care attendant ?

There is no doubt that old age does not mean helplessness: fortunately, many people feel cheerfulness and excellent health as they are at Alzheimer’s syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, senile dementia are common enough as well as consequences of injuries and strokes, problems with the musculoskeletal system. As a result, we need a professional who can provide the following service:

The ability to act in extraordinary situations. The person must know what to do if something goes wrong with the patient. The worker needs to have the appropriate experience.
Physical strength. If the elder citizen is bedridden, the home care attendant must be able to turn and move the patient. Even if the elder citizen can move and walk, they will always need some physical support.
Endurance and composure. Seniors who have some health problems are quite specific in communication. That is the main reason why a professional home attendant must be patient.
Appropriate education, certified knowledge, and skills. Nurses often choose to work as home attendants because they are already familiar with similar duties.

Untidiness and slovenliness may indicate a careless attitude towards personal hygiene. This means that every specialist in this field must look clean and neat. Besides, with age, human behavior, and consciousness change: it is about character, the focus of attention, and fears. The professional home care attendant must know about all these features, create a comfortable psychological environment, and establish a trusting relationship with an elder patient.

Should Kindness be Considered as a Priority?

There is no doubt that the quality of the service depends on the home care attendant’s traits. Here are the main requirements that the worker must meet:

tenderness. Home care attendants usually show their sincere attention to all the people around them: their parents, relatives, children, or neighbors. You will certainly notice that during the first meeting.
persistence. The professional should not be spineless or hesitant; he or she has to follow the recommendations given before. Thus, you will be sure that your elder relative is in safe hands.
goodwill. If the person is polite and courteous, it means that they know how to keep a distance and build trust with the whole family. It is also important for the home attendant not to have negative emotions towards people just because they are of a different race or religion.
solicitude. The home attendant is not the person who puts their interests ahead of others. He has to satisfy all the client’s requests.
attentiveness. The professional home care agency worker must be realistic and decisive, not to merge into their thoughts too often. The ability to notice the slightest changes in pressure, temperature, or general well-being is essential.

The candidate must have all the five mentioned personal traits and may be kind at the same time. It is important to see the difference as far as excessive kindness may cause the inability to cope with the patient’s whims and unreasonable desires. As a result, in most cases, kindness is not considered as a priority but certainly is an advantage if the home attendant is tender, polite, attentive, careful, and persistent.

If you are in the process of looking for a home care agency in New York, All Heart home care agency is the best decision for you. This is a team of professional home attendants who only provide high-quality service. Every worker meets all the mentioned requirements and has the appropriate experience. Professional care is their main focus.

Want to enjoy time with your elder relatives instead of serving and swearing? The All Heart Care team is ready to provide your family with professional help.

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How To Take Care Of Your Patient With Parkinson’s Disease

October 1, 2020 Diego Baez

Unfortunately, Parkinson’s disease is not treatable, but this does not mean that we can not fight the symptoms. To start, the Home Health Aide (HHA) should take full responsibility for monitoring medicine taken by a senior. Only after constant drug intake, we can expect an improvement in the patient’s condition. In this case, we cannot count on the elderly citizen’s responsibility, because they may suffer from bad memory and neurological deterioration.

5 Tips on taking care of Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Caregivers working with such patients must have both physical and mental endurance. However, the HHA’s main task is to make the senior’s life more persistent, predictable and clear. These are the basic recommendations:

Take care of safety. Parkinson’s patients must be protected from danger with the same care as children. Keep the first aid kit in a secluded place so that the patient does not accidentally take any other medications. Train yourself to shut off the gas supply right after using, and exclude the patient’s access to any electrical devices.
Practice physical therapy with the patient to restore joint mobility and strengthen muscles. These are simple breathing exercises, exercises for limb flexion and half squats, as well as speech exercises. Remember that after such training the patient may feel only a little tired, exercises should not be exhausting. It is highly recommended discussing this aspect with the physician.
Let the person move as much as possible. For this, remove all unnecessary things from the room, cover sharp corners with special protectors. The fact that due to poor coordination, the elderly citizen can often fall and get injured. All in all, give the senior the possibility to be active and independent.
Make a special menu. As we know, people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, have a sedentary lifestyle, and do not need a lot of calories. Patients should not follow complicated diets: just add as much fiber to the menu as possible and exclude fast food. Try to implement a special regimen for avoiding overeating.
Help the patient relive their youth. Support senior’s desires to be involved in their hobbies and interesting activities, this is the best type of psychological support.

Never discuss the problems of elderly citizens in their presence, be delicate and careful. In most cases, patients understand the severity of their situation, so dedication to any details will be harmful. Take care of the patient’s dignity – tactlessness can cause nervousness and stress.

Have you ever worked with Parkinson’s patient? If yes, please share your experience and give us any tips that you think will be extremely valuable for us at All Heart Homecare agency.

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