7 Ways In-Home Care Technologies Bring Care to Loved Ones
In-home care-giving has many benefits for your loved one as well as for the entire family who care and worry about your loved one who needs the extra care. A Del Mar caregiver can provide much-needed companionship along with in-home health care. This personal touch is important, as well as the tools that the caregiver has access to. Caregiving tools have come a long way thanks to modern technology. Here are 7 ways that healthcare technology is improving the care that caregivers are able to offer to seniors.
Emergency Monitoring
One of the most important things you can provide for a loved one is a quick response to emergency situations. For seniors who prefer to receive in-home care in La Jolla, they risk experiencing emergencies without anyone around. There could be a sudden heart attack, a fall, a bone break, a stroke, a break-in, or any number of emergencies. If alone, the senior may not be able to request help in time. Some seniors need a caregiver in their home 24/7 to help prevent and allay these situations, while some only need a caregiver for a few hours each day. For any senior who will be alone for some time each day, it’s essential to have an emergency home-monitoring system. A system like this can protect and assist seniors in emergencies by alerting family, contacting the police or the hospital, and giving seniors peace of mind in their own home.
A monitoring system can be customized to your loved one’s needs. It can include security features to deter break-ins, sensors that detect falls, automated phones that can dial family or 9-1-1, and sensors that seniors can wear on their person to detect heart rates or other sudden changes in the body. It truly is a miraculous advancement in health care technology.
Healthy Physical Activity
Another feature you can include with home monitoring, or even as a separate feature, is a physical activity and stress monitoring sensor. This helps seniors be able to get physical activity and enjoy doing the things they love while having peace of mind that they can remain safe. Physical activity is important to a senior’s health, but in the past it has been a hard thing for seniors to monitor on their own. A physical activity monitor can alert a patient to heart rate changes and breathing changes, and can even trigger an automated phone contact to a family member if something dangerous occurs. Most of the time, it just allows the senior to feel confident in working about their own house, gardening, or getting exercise unassisted.
Medication Dispensing
Even healthy seniors need regular medications and everyone could use reminders of when, how many, and how often to take prescribed medications! It’s so essential to a senior’s mental and physical health to stay on top of their medications and to be able to track the medications he or she takes. This is extremely helpful to family members who help manage their loved one’s medicines. A medicinal alert system can notify the patient when to take their medication, which pills to take, how to take them, and track that the medications were taken so that there’s no uncertainty.
Social Connection
Another important aspect of a senior’s health (and anyone’s health!) is to be able to connect with loved ones. A caregiver provides much-needed social connection and companionship, but meaningful relationships with family members are still of utmost import. Unfortunately, this can become difficult for aging family members who don’t get out as often and wish they could experience more frequent visits from family members. It’s also a challenge for older generations to connect with family members who are all online. Fortunately, new technology is coming out that helps bridge this gap between grandparents, their kids, and grandkids. If iPads, iPhones, and laptops are a bit too complex, then there are other technologies developed specifically for older generations that still allow them to connect and network with their family on popular social media sites.
Remaining at Home
For many seniors, remaining at home would not be possible without these modern technologies. Without healthy monitoring, home safety monitoring, and medication dispensing, some seniors would need to live with family or in a care facility. Their varying levels and states of health among seniors, and not all of them need to live at a facility. In fact, living at home has many benefits. It allows individuals to still feel independent, in control of their day, and to have the joy of managing their own space. It allows them to remain in a home with fond memories and where it’s easier and more comfortable to receive visitors. If there’s a senior in your life who is declining in health but is still capable in many ways and isn’t ready for a rest home, then modern technologies combined with in-home caregiving are wonderful, safe alternatives.
Meal Prep
Caregivers can assist with many things, including meal prep, transportation, basic housecleaning, and companionship. However, you don’t necessarily need to relegate meal preparation to a caregiver. In-home care technologies now exist that allow you to order meals, customized to your health needs, from a third-party source and have healthy, balanced meals delivered right to your door. These meals typically only need to be cooked in the microwave or oven to be ready to eat. This is a wonderful option for a senior who doesn’t need a caregiver to cook for them, but who worries about handling utensils or hot stovetops on their own.
The bottom line is that home-care technologies offer many great options that can support and improve both the mental and physical health of your loved one who wishes to remain at home for as long as possible.