As your parents grow older, they might need health services in their home or in an assisted living environment. The nature of your loved ones’ conditions or health status indicates what services they need. A comparison between home care and living in a community guides you and shows key factors in making a well-informed decision.
The Cost of The Health Services
How the family wants to pay for nursing services helps them compare assisted living with memory care to home care. Seniors often live on retirement funds and Social Security retirement benefits, and if they are on a fixed income, the price of at-home care is too high. Disability insurance and health policies pay for a portion of home care according to the person’s medical needs. These policies have restrictions and benefits typically run out after a specific time.
If the senior needs home care for a limited time, the at-home nurse would be the better choice, but if they need ongoing care or assistance, an assisted living community is the better option.
Does the Senior Want to Continue Living At Home?
Considering the senior loved one’s wishes gets you started when deciding the best thing to do. All seniors want to remain in the privacy of their homes for as long as possible, but, unfortunately, daily care requirements are too much for one caregiver if the senior has advanced Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.
The decision could lead to hard feelings and animosity between you and your parent. Home care is ideal for anyone who is mostly independent and capable of living on their own safely. Residents in assisted living in Anaheim need extra help to live a more independent life.
Does the Senior Need 24-Hour Care?
If the parent needs a nurse on a 24-hour basis, this may prove costly for the senior and their family. Home care nurses stay at the home for up to eight hours, and the family relieves the nurses after working. If the family cannot provide care after the eight-hour nursing shift, they must hire a night nurse to stay with their parent.
At-home nursing staff cannot stay with the person beyond the hours of their shift. This causes families to seek assistance from individuals who sit with the elderly but may not have adequate nursing training. Ultimately, the attempts to keep someone with the parent on a 24-hour basis become a struggle and unaffordable. Assisted living provides care on a 24-hour basis.
Choosing a Health Care Provider?
Setting up at-home nursing requires the senior to complete an insurance claim to get coverage for services. Next, a healthcare agency must assign a nurse or nurses to the person to stay with them in their home. The nurse is required to follow all instructions issued by the senior’s doctor. This includes dispensing their medication, encouraging them to exercise, and cooking their meals. These nurses may drive the client to doctor’s appointments, too.
However, once coverage runs out, the family must hire someone to stay with their parent. In an assisted living community, the family doesn’t go through all of this, but instead, the parent moves into the community, and all their healthcare needs are managed by the on-site staff.
Planning for the Unexpected
Dementia Care is a top priority for families of parents who have been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. The early stages allow the parent to continue to live independently, but once cognitive function declines, the parent may wander off and get lost. At-home nurses are helpful to clients that aren’t prone to wander. Once the parent can no longer take care of themselves, an assisted living community provides safer and more secure care.
Improving the Senior’s Relationships With Family
A common issue with families when caring for a loved one with dementia is the physical and emotional toll the disease takes on everyone. This hurts relationships between the parent and their children. If the senior lives in assisted living, the adult children get updates about their parent, and they can visit when the parent is having good days to create positive memories together.
Beneficial Senior Housing
At Arbor Palms of Anaheim, we understand how important senior loved ones are to families, and our staff treats everyone like they are family. Our community provides all vital services that residents need including housekeeping, transportation, and around-the-clock medical services. Want to compare assisted living to home care? Come to our community for a tour now.
