Senior Care Today | Distance Learning Systems (DLSI)

The Role Of A Senior Care Worker

In the health and social care industry, the senior care workers play an important role. Their main job is to ensure the dignity of their clients at all times. Their basic responsibility is to help the seniors in their everyday lives. Senior care is indeed a noble job because workers look after the elderly.

Elderly people nowadays are in need of professionals that can assist them properly. Many elder folks prefer to have an assistant to help them in their daily activities. They deserve to have a comfortable and pleasurable life during their senior stage.

Senior care workers often work in private homes to help the patients with their daily tasks, such as personal grooming and meal preparations. They should be strong and physically fit because they often help their patients get out of bed or lift and turn bed-ridden patients to prevent bedsores. They are not only helping their patients physically but also emotionally because most elderly people need to have a companion to talk with. Patients need feel that they are important and that there is someone willing to listen to their problems.

Senior care workers can also play recreational games with their patients, such as card and board games, in order to keep their patients mentally active and attentive. Even sitting with patients at the backyard while chatting with them can be very beneficial.

Senior care workers should be passionate and dedicated toward their jobs. Aside from that, it is also a physically and emotionally demanding job. But workers can still get satisfaction in caring for the seniors because it is gratifying to offer service to the elderly. It is true that it is not an easy task but many people are choosing this type of career because of their love to serve other people.

Beating the Problems of Senior Care

Looking after for an aging mother or father, domestic partner, household partner or good friend provides challenging difficulties, especially when a problem strikes and you are instantly faced with the required senior care. Perhaps your aging mother slipped, is put in the hospital with a broken hip and needs to go to a rehabilitation facility or senior care facility to recover. Care giving can also begin as a result of disturbing incidents and signs that indicate a need for lengthy lasting senior care. Perhaps your domestic partner has wandered off and went missing several times. Or a long-time buddy has lost a lot of body weight and hardly ever leaves the house. You may be the only person available to provide care. Or, you may be the linchpin of a network of close relatives and friends willing to help take care of your elderly. Whatever the situation, you are not sure of the next phase, or even the first thing to do.

Take a deep breath slowly. This may be the most important advice you receive throughout the care giving journey. All along the way, remember to stop every now and then and collect your thoughts. Clear your mind and relax. It may be challenging, but it will help maintain your mood and prevent you from falling under the weight of care giving problems. Make sure you know the senior’s birth date and Social Security number. You will need these details to access many services. Collect details about medical providers. If you haven’t done so already, collect details about your loved one’s doctors and health insurance coverage.

Another good advice is to call a family meeting. Try to get as many people as possible engaged from the start. Early feedback from them will accomplish interaction and decision-making down the line. Allow all close relatives an opportunity to show themselves and their emotions about what should be done. If possible, assign a person to be accountable for each process. These are just some steps that you can follow to avoid issues or problems when facing the task of senior care.

What To Look For In Senior Care Services?

The aging process can sometimes be stressful both to the elderly and their families. Senior care services strive to deliver the best care possible. They help seniors handle life’s challenges, build strong relationships, and emotionally support them as they journey through the aging period. So it is highly important to make sure that our elderly loved ones get the best care possible. Families must discuss specific qualities that would like to see in a senior care service:

Professional and Compassionate
A provider that is an expert in delivering quality service to seniors should be the top consideration of families. Employees of the said service should have the heart and passion for the elderly, not juts view the job as a means of living.Seniors have different personalities and families should ensure that they match their caregivers to their individual needs and differences. When a caregiver is committed and compassionate in helping seniors, this will create a positive and strong relationship between the elderly, their families, and the care givers themselves.

Creative and Respectful
Senior care providers should have a level of creativity where they can maintain an environment that keeps their patients active and enjoy activities like in a normal home setting. They should take into consideration a senior’s physical, mental and social faculties that contributes to their overall well-being.In addition, providers should demonstrate the highest degree of respect among their elderly patients. They should also understand the needs and find effective ways to enrich their lives with the work they provide.

When it comes to choosing a provider for your beloved elderly member, families should sit down, take time and thoroughly look into their options. Talking to the senior about their preferences and needs can help you narrow down this important decision.

Senior Care and Parent Reluctance

It can be painful for family members to watch a parent battle with day to day activities they used to find easy and the situation becomes even more complicated when a mother or father is reluctant to talk about his or her complications. They may worry losing their freedom, they may feel they are becoming a burden or they may simply be reluctant to recognize their need for help. They may even suffer from psychological issues or intellectual incapacity, restricting their capability to comprehend or deal with late-life changes. Luckily, a bit of understanding and planning can go a long way toward reducing the anxiety of a tough senior care conversation.

A good first step to determining how to bring up a complicated subject like senior care is knowing the factors why an aging loved one may want to avoid the conversation. “If your loved one is in need of senior care, he or she is likely dealing with loss, physical loss, psychological loss, the lack of independence,” says the Mayo Clinic. “Accepting care might mean relinquishing comfort and adjusting to new routines. As a result, your loved one might feel terrified and insecure, upset that he or she needs help or guilty about the idea of becoming a burden to family.”

Sadly, one of the most wrenching factors why it can be difficult to talk to a senior parent is when mental sickness or cognitive loss is an issue. A 2012 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies found that between 14 and 20 percent of American seniors suffer from one or more mental health problems, such as depressive disorders or substance abuse. Furthermore, more than 5 million people in America are living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Organization. The occurrence of these and other wellness issues in the ageing population make it more urgent than ever for family members to take charge of their loved ones’ well-being. It’s important to start by having a sincere and patient conversation.

Senior Care and Overall Wellness

Gone are the days when senior care was specifically about dealing with medical needs. Instead, the present day modern senior living facilities take a much more natural strategy, servicing the senior’s body and mind. In addition, senior living is constantly on the go from the standard elderly care facility servicing very ill sufferers, to independent living communities housing active and vibrant elderly people. As a result, the industry has adapted to offer an extensive continuum of care that focuses on the resident’s overall health and fitness.

Following this pattern of senior, a recent blog on Senior Care Corner provided 8 tips for helping elderly people improve and sustain their memory. It points out that “the brain function of aging can begin when we are only 45 and that by age 80, average people have lost 40% of their memory.” Many of these recommendations replicated the idea underlining dimensions of health and fitness concept, elderly people need to be pushed and involved in a variety of activities. Some recommendations in the article are to:

Find ways to keep them active
Provide psychologically exciting activities
Engage them in social activities
Get your senior connected to family, friends and other networks

Most significantly, dimension of health and fitness play a crucial part in a resident’s evolving senior care plan. The powerful changes to various measurements may illustrate a minor decrease that may need to be analyzed by the medical employees and therefore may require appropriate changes to the care plan. Such simple changes in health and fitness and practical recognition of the same along with a proper good care plan, could save communities significant money (tied to demographics, improved ADL services, lawsuits, etc.). In summary, senior health is no longer about just offering the best medical care, but is about offering the best overall care.

Senior Care and Social Workers

Chances are that if you have been exposed to senior care to any extent, whether you are a care provider, a friend or a senior yourself, you have probably interacted with a social worker. The question is, though, do you really know what that individual does? Now is the best time to explore exactly what these helpful experts achieve on a day-to-day basis so that we can understand just how useful they are when it comes to keeping senior living running like clockwork. Simply by listening to the term “social work,” you can think about the extensive range of obligations that people in this field have. While this general term can apply to professionals working in a variety of configurations, such as educational institutions and even government departments, geriatric social workers specifically deal with guaranteeing somebody’s senior care works in the best way possible for him or her. Because there are so many elements that need to be categorized at every level of senior living, social workers have to handle a number of different projects to make this assurance.

A geriatric social worker has to sort out all of the details of an individual’s care, considering the physical, psychological and even logistical factors that play a role in determining the characteristics of an individual’s immediate and future needs. The Consortium of New York Geriatric Education Centers described in an industry journal that, “gerontological social work interventions are instructed at improving dignity, self-determination, individual satisfaction, total well being, maximum functioning and guaranteeing the least limited living atmosphere possible.”

To achieve these projects, social workers get involved in numerous ways. To begin with, they can analyze the social needs of a senior. By identifying the type of psychological activation and connections that would best fit an individual, they can then arrange for them to be a part of groups and organizations, get involved in activities and go on trips that would all improve their total well being and fit their selections. This contains guidance classes, which could help them speak with experts about issues generally associated with elderly people, such as helping them come to surpass end-of-life psychological obstacles.

Senior Care and Technology

Hitting into an approximated $7 billion baby boomer spending potential, big businesses are focusing on technological innovation as it pertains to senior care and aging in place, writes USA Today. That technological innovation varies from supporting or changing the diminishing number of care providers comparative to those who depend on them, to distribution of medicine and smart houses that are prepared with receptors and other tracking devices and they are focusing on the aging inhabitants in groups.

Increasingly seen as a safety net for older parents and family members, electronic receptors and other home-based gadgets are giving satisfaction to family members of the aging inhabitants. This “technological trend of international significance” is offering alternatives from medicine management to safety and interaction and is increasing the ability for senior citizens in America to age in their houses. “Imagine bottle caps that shine when it’s time to take medicine, seats that take your vital signs and even carpeting that evaluate walking styles and predict physical damage and psychological infirmity. All are here or coming soon and will be a benefit to the country’s 78 million Baby Boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964, who are experiencing the possibilities of getting old with a reducing population of care providers.”

The technological innovation benefits those who use it, as well as the community in general, as a care provider shortage is approximated to match with the population of child boomers reaching their 70s and 80s. But difficulties are plentiful, too, with different gadgets and technological innovation current on a single platform, as well as the worry associated with tracking people in their houses, the article notes. Medical care and aging technology for senior care, however, is a big business and those who are creating alternatives now are on the cutting edge of what will amount to a large pattern later on. That includes technical leaders from Intel-GE to Qualcomm and many others that are in the field currently, or have programs to get into in the near term.