How To Help Your Loved One With Yard Work This Fall
While a professional caregiver may help your parent with day-to-day living assistance, family members can still provide meaningful care through yard work and seasonal chores
Come autumn, older adults have much to rejoice - leaves are changing color, temperatures are more than pleasant, and the local farmers’ markets are packed with healthy, organic harvest foods. Although fall may be the favorite season of many seniors, to others, it may come with certain difficulties.
This is especially true for seniors in need of elderly home care assistance. For them, one of the most challenging tasks in the fall is yard work. Not only that seasonal tasks such as raking leaves or clearing the gutter may be too strenuous for some seniors but they can also put them at risk of falling or injuring themselves.
Here’s how you can help your loved one with yard work.
Make A Yard Work Checklist
Before you decide whether you’ll carry out the yard work on your own or you’ll opt to call the landscaping professionals, consider inspecting the yard and making a checklist. Our elderly home care providers consulted with home improvement professionals to help you with this task. Here’s what you might want to put on your checklist:
- Check all window and door seals
- Check the roof for any damaged shingles
- Drain outdoor spigots and turn off outdoor water
- Drain sprinkler system and store hoses
- Rake fallen leaves
- Clear out the gutter
- Plant trees, shrubs, bulbs, roses, and cool-season annuals
- Prune plants
- Fertilize cool-season lawns
- Protect plants from cold with a layer of mulch
Depending on how much free time you have, helping your loved one with yard work can take one weekend or one phone call. You can organize a family gathering and everyone can pitch in to help or you can hire professionals to do the clean-up – it’s entirely up to you.
Elderly home care providers suggest you deal with the yard work in one of the following ways:
- With mom or dad’s help: Although raking leaves or clearing the gutter would be too hard for your loved one, they can still perform some less demanding yard work. Yard activities like pruning plants are a great way to get some physical exercise and boost muscle strength and flexibility.
- Include other family members or do it yourself: If Mom or Dad are prevented from doing yard work for any reason, you can ask your siblings or close family members to step in. If you live in the area, you can chip away the work little by little whenever you have the time. However, if you don’t live nearby, you may need to put aside a whole weekend and do all the yard work in one go.
- Call professional yard service: If you are short on time or you happen to live far away, hiring a professional yard service might sound like a good idea. Doing some research online and reading reviews can help you find a reliable and affordable yard service provider.