One of the key choices you will make as your loved one ages is the senior living facility he/she should check into. For a long time, elderly care homes were associated with all forms of physical and financial abuse and neglect. Most people thus opted to have their aging loved ones at home. This might have worked for some time, but with everyone in a household now holding a job away from home or attending school to make ends meet, your loved one will be left alone.
Home care centers for seniors have thankfully undergone a great transformation. To this end, the environment here is one filled with cheer and not the drab and lifeless one seen in the past. Vibrant colors and lovely decor dot the spaces filled with several entertainment activities to keep seniors occupied throughout the day.
Optimal security to keep out intruders and prevent those with memory conditions from getting lost is also available. The home’s management does thorough background checks on their staff to guarantee the safety of its residents. Virtually all activities in modern care homes are now hinged on some defining elements of quality elderly care. Here are these elements.
Experience
The experience of seniors in care facilities nowadays centers on an individual’s preferences, goals and unique needs. There is no textbook approach to patients since the management of care homes now understand that no two cases are alike even if their demographics and medical conditions are similar. With the individual-based approach, care is customized. This way, the resident does not feel like just another statistic in the home’s population but rather an important member of the facility’s community.
Empathy
Some of the staff in care facilities in the past were cold and unsympathetic, who primarily focused on getting the benefits their positions promised. Empathy is currently one of the cornerstones of senior care. The staff in care homes are understanding and patient and aim to ensure the optimal comfort and health of residents.
Professionalism
In times past, most activities in care facilities were handled by volunteers who felt they had little to lose and did not have as much training on handling various senior care needs. Nowadays, most tasks are handled by professionals. There might be a volunteer or two, but they in most cases will also have undergone some training to equip them with the basics of senior care. You can thus rest assured all elements of your loved one’s care will be professionally handled.
Respect
Care homes can no longer get away with snapping at patients, rolling eyes at them, sarcastic responses, and other displays of outright disrespect. These are elements of lackluster care that impact a resident’s emotional well-being. In so doing, they also affect his/her physical state. Respect for patient’s wishes provided they do not harm them is thus essential.
The above elements have considerably changed the care quality the elderly get at care homes. With the friends around your loved one’s age at the care home, his/her emotional well-being will be stable. There is thus no need of leaving him/her locked indoors with a nurse checking in occasionally, so you handle your activities of daily living.
