Plymouth MA Home Care News
When it comes to senior care, one thing is indisputable: a vast majority of people, including our local seniors here in Plymouth, MA, prefer to remain at home to receive care as they age. This preference for home care remains strong among all seniors, even with those who struggle with their basic health and mobility. After all, as surveys show, they want to live amid the comfort and familiarity of what they’ve known for years, for as long as they can. People at any age, but especially those who are older, feel more secure with what they know than with what they don’t know. Living in a new environment and interacting with strangers can be especially daunting during one’s twilight years.
The public shift to home care didn’t happen overnight. Years ago, when people grew older and were less able to care for themselves, the options were generally limited to either living with family or moving into institutional care, such as a nursing home.
This changed for several different reasons – with changes in our social mores leading the way. First came the phenomena of the two-paycheck family. Homemakers, who had once stayed home and were available to care for children and parents, were replaced by career women who now had work lives every bit as full as their husbands. In addition, the world grew smaller, with adult children as likely to live on the other side of the country as on the other side of the block. This made family caregivers, as we once knew them, the exception rather than the rule.
As a result, families needed to look for help beyond the family unit when it came to caring for aging loved ones. They needed to learn to place their trust in others. This forged the growth of home care agencies that earned that trust. Families that did their research could feel confident that their elderly loved ones would be safe when cared for by professional caregivers who were experienced and compassionate.
Not surprisingly, with home care now a viable option, families started to see the added benefits of home care. While no one feels greater love for an elderly parent than a family member, it soon became evident that these home care aides actually had a skill set the family caregiver most likely did not. While adult children may be well meaning, they also may lack the know how to care for mom when she comes home from the hospital or a rehab facility, or feel awkward about bathing dad when he can no longer do it himself. Most families also found they viewed the one-to-one care provided by home care as a decided plus over the “group care” found in an institution.
Even more so, there have been growing concerns in recent years about the quality of institutional care. A recent report in Texas, for example, blasted state nursing homes for their poor standard of care. The report described them as “shamefully poor,” and they received “a solid ‘F’” by an AARP associate state director for advocacy. “There’s a robust amount of data that suggests there are real problems when it comes to providing quality care in Texas nursing homes,” according to the report. Medication and pharmacy issues were viewed as the most common problems, followed by staff treatment of residents.
Of course, this is not to say that there aren’t excellent nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Still, with the confidence that many families have today in home care, in addition to the decided preference many seniors have in remaining at home as long as possible, there can be little doubt that home care has become the #1 option in senior care.
If a loved one could benefit from home care services in Plymouth, MA or elsewhere in Plymouth, Norfolk or Bristol Counties in Massachusetts, please give us a call. Cottage Caregivers trusted and dependable staff are carefully selected to ensure seniors get the loving and attentive care they deserve. This makes a senior’s life easier and provides families with peace of mind. Feel free to call us at Call (781) 430-8599 or send us a message by visiting our contact page at https://cottagecaregivers.com/contact-us/ .
