When laundry, cooking, resetting the kitchen, and other daily tasks become time-consuming and draining for seniors in Zachary, care providers can reduce the burden that falls on your loved ones. Care Plans support the balance by simplifying daily routines and letting your loved one retain their autonomy.
Burnout doesn't happen in a single day. Maybe lunch used to be no problem to make, but it now takes most of the afternoon. Perhaps a load of laundry is done, but left in the dryer. It may be the case that the kitchen is cleaned, but rest of the day is spent without energy to do anything else.
A good time to ask this question is, when does your loved one start to burn out?
When does your loved one actually need help?
Non medical home care in Zachary provides a spectrum of services that cover daily activities like laundry, meal preparation, bed linen changes, errands, and general housekeeping. Care services can also support your loved one's daily routines.
Our focus is on daily support that fits into your loved one's lifestyle.
Think about a typical weekday. One meal of the day needs to be prepared. There is one load of laundry to be done. Most likely the bed needs to be changed. After lunch, the kitchen and the rest of the house has to be reset to be ready to prepare dinner for your family.
A Care Pro can assist with activities that will not turn your day into a list of things to do for the parent. The real question is what your parent is still able to do and where they may need assistance.
As an example, your parent may still want to pick their food, partake in meal prep, fold their own clothes, and arrange their bedroom their way. Support can be aimed at alleviating the burden that may have been caused to your parent.
Individualized attention can be given to a client based on the many types of services that can be provided by Home Instead. The Care Plan can target the areas of your parent's routine that need support, rather than assuming your parent's home needs the same sorts of services as everyone else's.
How can we keep the older adult doing the parts they want to do?
When I think of your parent as the client, I take a top-down approach and ask them, what do they require help with? I do not take a bottom-up approach and tell them what they must stop doing.
If your parent still derives satisfaction from meal prep, for example, then we keep them engaged in doing that. Help in this case can mean shopping for meal ingredients or cleaning up after the meal, not taking over the task of meal prep. Support can be given to fulfill tasks that are part of your parent's regular routine if other tasks are too much of a burden, like changing sheets and folding laundry.
That is an important distinction.
Being independent doesn’t necessarily mean doing everything alone. It can mean deciding where to put support.
A good conversation involves asking some simple questions:
Which house chore requires the most energy?
What tasks do you still like to do yourself?
What gets put off to another time?
How can we make a regular weekday easier?
How should we handle routines to fulfill specific preferences?
Care Plans can’t be developed from requests for “help around the house” but can be developed from these answers.
It is still very important for your parents to be involved in the routine after care starts. If they prefer food to be prepared differently or if laundry should be done on a different day, these preferences should still be important to the routine.
What can mealtime routines tell you about the support requirements?
While mealtime routines can show that daily activities are becoming more difficult, they do not explain the reasons why. There can be several reasons to give more support. These can range from taking a very long time to prepare meals to skipping cleanup and reducing the overall complexity of the food prepared. None of these problems indicate the presence of a medical illness.
This distinction is important to understand.
If I were offering senior home care in Zachary; I would concentrate on the area about which we have control. This is whether the routine meets the needs of the person.
Your parent may love breakfast but find it tiring to prepare dinner. Dinner may be fine to prepare, however, the shopping and the clean up after the dinner causes the entire routine to fall apart. A Care Pro (based on the Care Plan) may be able to assist with several aspects of house chores related to preparing meals.
I wouldn’t jump to conclusions and assume a person’s health is failing because they have altered their cooking or eating practices. Weight gain or loss, memory changes, and swallowing changes are serious and should be addressed by your healthcare provider.
Home care is helpful with routine support, however, it will not provide a reason for the change in routine.
What are some ways Zachary families can build a small weekly task list for the Care Plan?
First, identify roadblocks and then address those. A comprehensive redesign of the week isn’t necessary.
An example task list would be as follows:
Lunch: Prepare the meal and clean kitchen
Laundry: Wash, dry, and fold a single load
Bed: Change sheets and remake the bed
Kitchen: Clean all dishes and counters and place items back where mom likes
Of course, these tasks should be modified to fit your mom’s routine.
Maybe the bed linens are changed on a particular day and service sheets and blankets daily. Maybe mom does not want to clean sheets or put laundry in the dryer. Details like these keep the routine of the home.
In addition, the tasks that mom needs help with and the tasks that take more time to complete are not the same. For example, taking more time to cook a meal should not be considered too much help, as long as it makes the routine of the day more bearable for your mom. The Care Plan should focus more on the supportive tasks.
How will the plan address your parent's preferences, routines, and priorities? Our local Baton Rouge office staff has detailed information about our Home Instead team.
Coverage Limits
Home Instead provides non-medical home care. This care does not cover skilled nursing, medical care, and/or care that is performed by a licensed clinician.
A Care Pro can assist with meal preparation and light housekeeping, provide companionship, and even offer reminders to take medications in alignment with the Care Plan. Non-medical home care does not include medical diagnosis, administration of injections, providing wound care, and/or administration of medications.
For some, non-medical home care and clinical services may be necessary. If your parent needs nursing or any other type of medical service, you may want to contact a healthcare provider to determine the next steps, in addition to receiving supportive services at home.
Knowing care service coverage limits helps you determine what home care service is the most appropriate for the need, and more importantly, what other services may be required.
FAQ-Zachary, LA home care for seniors
Does home care assist with meal preparation and laundry?
Home care can certainly assist with the preparation of meals, laundry, and light housekeeping, depending on the care plan. The focus with care plans is the identification of the specific duties that will assist the person in the achievement of an optimal routine, as opposed to looking at the Care Pro as a substitute for the household staff.
Does asking for home care mean my parent has to stop doing housework?
No. Care doesn’t mean your parent has to stop housework. They are still able to do the tasks that they are capable of. Care can be taken to assist with certain tasks or parts of certain tasks. For example, a parent may prepare one part of the meal. The Care Pro may assist with the cleanup, laundry, or changing the bed.
Can Care Pros prepare meals that are customized to my parent's taste?
Mealtime customization is also able to be added to the Care Plan. Preference should be taken into consideration in this discussion. Included should be meals they enjoy and are comfortable preparing themselves, the level of routine desired, and meal preparation preferences.
If housework and meal preparation become more difficult, what should I do?
The situation may require more than housework to be addressed. Non-medical home care is unable to answer the question regarding the cause of the situation. If you have concerns, you should seek the appropriate healthcare professional, whilst considering what other types of assistance would be best to provide at home.
What will a non-medical Care Pro not do?
Non-medical care will not provide nursing or medical care and will not provide care for medical issues. Care Pros will not provide medical care, perform injections or wound care, provide assistance with medical issues, or assist with administering medication. They are only able to assist with care tasks, as outlined in the Care Plan, which may include meal preparation, light housekeeping, or providing company, and reminder tasks.
What is included in the Care Plan?
Let's begin with an average week. For each task, write down how you feel about if it is something that you postpone, takes too much energy, or adds to your frustration. Then based on what you have written see which tasks your parent prefers to do on their own. From this point you can define a clear plan in order to provide the required support and not encroach on their autonomy.
If taking care of the meals, doing the laundry, changing the bedding and/or helping to manage the activities of daily living in the kitchen is starting to take the entire day, you aren't required to wait until parents need assistance with everything. Families living in Zachary can talk with our Home Instead Baton Rouge office to see what household tasks need support and what should stay in the control of your parent.
About the Author
Matt Cohn has spent more than 25 years helping older adults and their families find the right support to remain safe and comfortable at home. He is the owner of Home Instead locations serving Baton Rouge and Hammond in Louisiana, along with Gainesville, Lawrenceville, and Dunwoody in Georgia.
