Taking care of a loved one who is disabled or elderly is a challenging task. In fact, ensuring their safety and wellbeing often takes many hours a week. In New York, most of us lead busy lives, so it can be hard to meet your friend or relative’s requirements without professional help. If they would like to stay in their own house or apartment, you should look into hiring a home health aide, who can visit them in their Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, or Bronx home.
Your aide will take care of all basic needs, such as the patient’s daily hygiene, household tasks, and meal preparation. They might also accompany your loved one to meetings, so you can be sure they don’t miss important doctor’s appointments even if you’re not around. Today, we’ll have a closer look at what you can expect from an aide and why hiring one could be a great way of getting the help your family needs.
What Does a New York Home Health Aide Do?
The job of a health aide is varied, and the tasks they complete depend on the patient’s needs. When you sign up with Parent Care, we will first discuss the current physical and mental condition of your friend or relative. Most likely, our team will begin by visiting their home to see whether it is well set up for their lifestyle. If not, they might suggest some alterations that will increase safety.
After meeting the patient, our staff can come up with a care plan together with your family. We will decide on the frequency and length of visits, making sure all needs are covered. The tasks the health aide takes over might include helping your loved one complete hygiene and household tasks in the morning and evening, preparing meals and taking medicine, and escorting them to regular or one-off appointments.
Visiting Your Loved One in their Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, or Bronx Home
Our aides are mobile, which means that they drive around the various boroughs and visit patients in their homes. When you first contact our staff, they will determine how often visits are necessary. In some cases, the patient requires a significant amount of care and would therefore benefit from two per day. However, if they are still able to complete some tasks on their own, one daily visit or less could be appropriate.
Assisting with Daily Hygiene Tasks
The core task of an aide is to help elderly and frail people with their daily tasks. In the morning, the aide might arrive at the time your loved one wakes up and help them get out of bed. Then, they will accompany them to the bathroom, so the patient can take a shower or bath. If necessary, the aide can also help with dressing, grooming, and transferring the elderly person to another room, such as the living room, where they will spend the rest of their day.
Once the most important tasks are complete, the aide will leave the patient to get on with their day. Unless your loved one is able to perform their evening routine on their own, the aide will return as it gets closer to bedtime and help them change into their nightwear and move into the bedroom for the night. This routine can take a lot of pressure off you and other family members since you’ll know that the aide has checked on your relative during the day.
Meal Preparation and Basic Household Tasks
Many of our patients are very frail and unable to take care of their own household tasks. Despite this, it is often much better for them to stay at their Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, or Bronx home because this allows them to enjoy a familiar, comforting environment, a more active social life with visits from friends and relatives, and a greater degree of freedom.
Your New York home health aide is here to help with any household tasks your loved one is no longer able to complete on their own. They might prepare one or two daily meals for them, paying attention to the nutritional quality and the patient’s preferences. What’s more, they can check that all medications are laid out correctly and are being taken in the right dosage and at the correct time of day.
Escorting Your Loved One to their Appointments
The patients we serve often have their preferred shops, salons, and clinics. For instance, they might have gone to the same hairdresser for many years and wish to continue with regular appointments. With the help of your aide, they can keep their normal schedule, even if you and other family members aren’t around to accompany them. Once you let us know what their weekly schedule is, we can cater to it and make sure the aide is around to escort them.
This applies to both regular bookings and one-off appointments, for example an important doctor’s office visit. By working with a health aide, you can be sure that there is always someone around to help, and you don’t have to worry about your loved one going to places on their own and getting hurt.
Making Sure the Home Is Safe
As mentioned, we will have a look at the patient’s home to make sure it is safe for their current physical and mental condition. There might be easy adjustments, such as nonslip pads in the bathroom, a chair in the shower, or handrails in the hallways, that could make a big difference to the safety of the space. We can suggest the best devices to make sure your loved one doesn’t get hurt within their own home.
As time goes by, the patient’s needs may change. In many cases, a setup that worked well in the past is no longer appropriate after a few months or years. For this reason, your aide will continuously monitor your loved one’s condition and let you know about any necessary changes.
How Can You Get Started with Parent Care?
Caring for a frail person is a hard task, which is why professional help is often the best way forward. To get started with us, you can fill out the contact form on our website, send us an email, or give us a call.
We will get back to you with more information about our services and suggest an initial consultation to discuss your situation. The process of hiring a health aide usually starts with elder care planning, during which you can sit down with an experienced member of our team and figure out which services are best suited to your loved one’s needs.
If you have a frail or elderly loved one who’s still living in their own home, you might be concerned about their wellbeing. As patients deteriorate, daily tasks such as taking a bath or shower and preparing nutritionally balanced meals become a challenge. For this reason, many New York families decide to hire a home health aide, who can make sure that the patient is safe and that these essential tasks are completed every day.
By getting the help they need, your loved one can remain in their home instead of having to live out their golden years in a care facility. This has many mental and physical health benefits, especially since some residential homes are understaffed at the moment. Call us today at Parent Care to find out more about home visits in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, or the Bronx. We would be happy to book you in for a consultation with our care coordination team.
