Know what is covered under elderly care services by a professional home nurse.

Home care for the elderly is a much sought after service in a bustling city like Dubai. With a population comprising of expats and people from different parts of the world coming to Dubai for attaining their professional goals often are left with little time to spare at home and care for their families particularly elderly people like their parents by staying at home. Hence, most working people in Dubai are going for professional elderly home care services. Here’s what you need to know about these services and the roles and responsibilities elderly care agencies are ready to take up providing the best of care to your elderly parent.

Elderly care service agencies appoint nurses who are trained in old age care with the expertise to administer medicines, injections, therapies required by the elderly patient. These nurses are generally trained to handle health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, gastroenteritis related conditions, several kinds of postoperative care including joint replacement surgeries, cataract and other conditions that are common occurrences during old age.

Senior home assistance or senior home healthcare services broadly involves three categories of nurses or caregivers that you may require as per the health condition and necessity of your patient.

PRIMARY CAREGIVERS

Primary caregivers are home healthcare nurses for seniors who are administered to provide medical treatment to elderly who need care for health conditions discussed above. Their responsibilities include administering medicine to the patient as per a schedule, injecting medicine as required, undertake medical investigations at homes such as blood sugar or blood pressure tests as advised by the doctor and record the same in a chart to be reported to the doctor. Their responsibility entails them to monitor the health condition of the patient during their working hours and inform the guardian of the patient or even the doctors. Primary caregivers also provide the service of dressing of wounds.

PRIMARY CAREGIVERS WITH DAILY ACTIVITY ASSISTANCE

This type of caregivers or elderly care nurses assists patients with daily activities apart from medical care. The activities include helping the patient with daily chores such as feeding, bathing, brushing, maintaining the highest level of toilet hygiene, helping the patient with mobility such as getting out of the bed to assist the patient while going to the toilet.

PRIMARY CAREGIVERS WITH ALL ROUND ASSISTANCE

This type of home care nurses specializing in elderly care provide services instrumental to daily living and functioning of the patient and his surrounding environment. Such services include cooking food for the patient as per the strict dietary requirements as suggested by the physician. She will follow a procedure of cooking that maintains the highest standard of hygiene and retains maximum nutritional value. The food also balances the different nutritional requirements of the patient. The all-around elderly caregiver ensures that the environment in which the patient is living maintains cleanliness to prevent germs. The nurse ensures cleaning of the room in which the patient resides and set some rules for visitors as well as family members entering the area.

CAREGIVERS WITH EMOTIONAL ASSISTANCE

Mental health and a positive spirit to fight diseases are a huge area of concern and requires specialized care. Terminally ill patients, patients with disability or fighting malignant diseases such as cancer often suffer from stress and actively seek the company of caregivers who provide them with the courage to fight such health conditions. Home health care agencies providing services for elderly care appoint a special category of nurses with training to deal with cognitive and mental health issues. If your patient has any such mental health issues and you are not being able to spare enough time with your loved one to help him/her overcome such a delicate phase in life, you should go for caregivers who can provide emotional assistance to your loved one along with medical care.

WHAT’S NEXT WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN A CATEGORY OF CAREGIVER?

Now that you have chosen a home nurse for the care of your elderly patient at home, it’s time to have a one-to-one conversation with the caregiver and list down the responsibilities specifically required by your patient. At this stage, it is important for you to reveal every medical detail related to the health of your patient and create a schedule of activities in consultation with your elderly home care expert. Since the engagement between the elderly care nurse and the patient is not going to be one that is restricted to functional activities so it is advisable to facilitate a beforehand conversation between the caregiver and the elder patient to find out how they go along emotionally as care is more about emotional bonding that leads to wellness.

Based on the above categories choose an elderly home care nurse suitable to your requirements from a reputed agency with necessary accreditations to provide you with a caregiver who can make your loved one’s journey in the senile age a truly caring one.