May is Arthritis Awareness Month and while you may not know the pain that this condition can cause, for some, it can be debilitating. It doesn’t matter the type of arthritis or what joints it affects the most; when a senior has arthritis, they could find that various tasks become increasingly difficult. In some cases, it can seem impossible.
The pain may very well be so severe in the mornings that just getting started could take hours when it once took only 10 or 15 minutes. Home care can help.
How could in-home care make a difference?
For one thing, in-home care can support aging seniors with arthritis when they (the senior) need help, not only when in-home care is available. This may sound like an odd thing, but when you realize that family is often the first support system for an aging senior, but only when their schedule allows, you begin to realize it’s not always ideal.
When you hire through an in-home care agency, then you could hire somebody to stop by and support you (or the senior in your life) for a couple of hours in the morning.
What if the senior doesn’t need help every day?
No one can predict when flareups will happen. A senior may be fine on Monday and Tuesday, but by the time Wednesday rolls around they can barely get out of bed. The flareup is so severe in their fingers that they can’t even open their hands, let alone grasp anything.
Imagine waking up with your hands, hips, and knees so swollen and in pain that you can’t grasp onto anything, but you also can’t climb out of bed without worrying you may slip and fall (leading to some potentially serious injuries).
An in-home care aide may not be scheduled to stop by that day, but if the senior is experiencing such debilitating pain, they could call that in-home care agency and likely find an aide who is available.
Of course, this isn’t always the case, but when you hire in-home care through an agency, it is more likely than it would be an impossibility. However, if you hire someone independently, such as someone who you know or found through a classified section of the local newspapers, it’s highly unlikely that they would be available at a moment’s notice.
How else might in-home care assist someone with arthritis.
Taking a lot of the pressure of daily tasks off their shoulders, a senior with arthritis wouldn’t have to concern themselves with meal prep, light housekeeping, or running other errands when they had a home care aide supporting them.
Sometimes, stress can make these flareups worse (or seem much worse), and knowing someone will be by to support them makes all the difference in the world.
If you or someone you know has arthritis and is advancing in years, talk to them about in-home care. When they can feel supported and safe, the threat of the next flareup won’t feel so overwhelming or frightening.