If you love and care for someone who is aging, you may find yourself struggling with how you can give them the best possible care. While each situation is going to be different, there are some general principles that you can and should follow to allow your loved one to remain happy and healthy while being helped with something as personal as their health, wellness, and overall lifestyle.
To help you ensure that you’re giving your loved one your best assistance, here are three tips for offering the best care to an elderly loved one.
Get Recommendations Before Trusting Their Care To Someone Else
Even if your loved one is still living at home or is living with you in your home, you may find that you’re not able to give them all the care they need single handedly. In situations like this, you’ll need to entrust someone else with part of their care. However, doing some can be a very scary and intimidating task.
To make this easier, AARP advises that you ask for recommendations from other caregivers that you know when you’re seeking to get additional care for your loved one. Because good help can be hard to find, getting a personal reference from someone that you know and trust can increase the odds of you finding a supplemental caregiver that will help your loved one at the standard at which you seek and they need.
Give Them As Much Control As Possible
Just because you’re having to step in with some of the care for your loved one doesn’t mean that you need to take over everything completely. In fact, many aging adults don’t like when they’re offered more help than they think they need.
To keep this from happening within your relationship with your loved one, William A. Haseltine, a contributor to Forbes.com, suggests that you regularly speak with your loved one about the kind of care they need, when they’d like to receive it, and by whom they’d like the care to be given. By doing this, you’re giving your loved one as much control as possible while still ensuring that their needs are met.
Make All Changes On A Trial Basis
As your loved one continues to age, there will likely be a lot of changes that you need to administer in order to keep up with their health and personal needs. But for your loved one, making these changes may be scary and overwhelming.
When a change is necessary yet your loved one resists, the staff at the Mayo Clinic suggests that you propose the changes on a trial basis. Then, if things go well or aren’t as bad as your loved one anticipated, the processes will already be in place for continuing on in that way.
If you’re caring for an aging loved one, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you give them the best possible care while respecting their wishes.
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