The Benefits of Homecare Assistance for Housebound Seniors
No demographic group is at higher risk of becoming housebound than the elderly. Reduced strength, limited mobility, memory disorders, and other age-related health concerns can make leaving home for even basic errands a trying task for older adults. But with homecare assistance, housebound seniors can retain their quality of life and continue living in a safe and familiar environment.
Housebound seniors make up a significant percentage of Visiting Angels® care recipients. So we know how impactful homecare assistance can be in the lives of these individuals.
By providing physical care and assistance, helping with errands outside the home, and providing regular social contact, caregivers can make a big difference. The right homecare provider can make life at home both safer and more livable while helping housebound seniors age in place.
How Homecare Assistance Benefits Housebound Seniors
Physical Care and Assistance
Being unable to leave one’s home can severely impact your quality of life. It keeps you away from family and friends. It stops you from enjoying the outdoors. And it makes small joys that other people take for granted — like a leisurely stroll on a sunny day — inaccessible.
Yet for seniors, being housebound is rarely an isolated issue. Typically, whatever makes an individual housebound also impacts other areas of their life. Routine tasks may prove difficult without assistance. These can include everything from laundry to meal preparation to grooming, dressing, and bathing. Unable to safely perform these tasks, seniors often fall into a spiral of self-neglect.
With homecare assistance, housebound seniors enjoy a helping hand around the home. Routine tasks become a lot easier, raising overall quality of life. A helping hand can also prevent slips, trips, and other mishaps, reducing housebound seniors’ risk of injury.
Help with Day-to-Day Errands
Homecare assistance can make it easier for seniors to get out of the house and interact with the outside world. For some seniors, this is enough to make regular errands possible again. Even if they can’t collect prescriptions or shop for groceries by themselves, they can do these things with a caregiver’s assistance.
But even with assistance, errands remain impractical for many housebound seniors. The time and effort simply aren’t worth the effort, so long as there’s another way to get the job done.
Thankfully, that’s easy with caregiver services. Many homecare assistance agencies will have caregivers perform everyday errands for clients. Generally, these errands are performed on the way to or from the client’s home. This way, seniors can have their medications and groceries collected without hiring an outside service.
Conversation and Companionship
Social isolation is one of the biggest and most overlooked risks for housebound seniors. Unable to leave home, these seniors can no longer attend favorite events, enjoy impromptu outings, or visit friends and family. Compounding the problem, seniors who become housebound often find that they receive fewer visitors than they previously used to.
This kind of isolation affects quality of life more than many people realize. Seniors who become isolated from friends and family report far higher rates of depression, anxiety, and stress. But they also suffer a dramatic reduction of physical well-being and life expectancy.
Homecare assistance helps alleviate the loneliness that many housebound seniors experience. The right caregiver can act as a companion for isolated seniors, providing a helping hand while boosting their emotional quality of life.
In these scenarios, homecare assistance doesn’t just brighten seniors’ days. It reduces their risk of physical injury and illness, and it can literally increase their lifespan!
Worried about a housebound senior in your family? Call your local Visiting Angels today to schedule a free homecare assistance evaluation.
