Growing up, you never really defined your parents by their demographic cohort.
To the world, they may been called the "Silent Generation", or a "Baby Boomer", but the fact is, that to you, your parents were always "Mom and Dad."
Sometimes, as children, we forget that mom and dad are humans, and have a wide variety of needs that you may not even think of as someone that hasn't experienced their age yet.
If you are able to see life from their perspective, then you might have realized that you might have to re-evaluate what their new senior needs are, and how you can move forward together as a family to care for their senior home care needs.
Growing up, you never really defined your parents by their demographic cohort.
To the world, they may been called the "Silent Generation", or a "Baby Boomer", but the fact is, that to you, your parents were always "Mom and Dad."
Sometimes, as children, we forget that mom and dad are humans, and have a wide variety of needs that you may not even think of as someone that hasn't experienced their age yet.
If you are able to see life from their perspective, then you might have realized that you might have to re-evaluate what their new senior needs are, and how you can move forward together as a family to care for their senior home care needs.
The best way to think about senior care, and to know what type of care your senior needs, is to answer the following question:
How independent is my senior?
This question is important, because if you are looking for some type of care for your senior, it is because they have lost a sense of indepenence, and you are looking for a way to help bring that back to them.
When we were children, we were dependent on a family member to help us tie our shoes, and we were dependent on their help.
Once we learned how to tie our own shoes, we no longer needed their help, and became independent (atleast in that small category of our lives.)
Our aging loved ones are slowly becoming less independent, and are beginning to rely on external sources of help to go on about their day to day lives.
This is not a bad thing, and it does not need to be looked at in a negative light.
Our loved ones just need an extra pair of hands to help them with their day to day lives, just like we did when we were children.
So how do we know how independent our senior is? We came up with a solution to get you headed in the right direction.
When we look at senior independence, we can see that it moves along a spectrum from being self-sufficient, to being very dependent on another.
A senior can be placed in any section of the spectrum, and can their position on the scale certainly change as time goes on.
It is important to continually gauge where your senior is on the spectrum, by identifying what Senior Independence Gaps they might have.
We previously mentioned that a child was lacking independence when he could not tie his shoe, and that he was relying on a responsible adult to help with that task.
The child not being able to tie their shoe is the independence gap, where he needs to learn a new skill in order to bridge the independence gap and tie their shoe.
Just like the child who can't tie their shoe, seniors also have independence gaps that are specific to them.
As people age, they face new challenges that they haven't experienced before, and if they care about fixing those probelms they encounter, they need to find a new skill, ability, tool or resource to help them overcome their new challenge.
We believe that their is a solution to every independence gap that a senior has.
Below are some of the Senior Gaps that can be solved in relation to their location on the Senior Home Care Spectrum
Begin to reflect on your aging parents needs, and see which category they fall into.
Being able to deeply consider every aspect of their lives will help you provide the right level of care.
Some people think that their family member needs to be watched 24/7 but in reality, their senior is more independent than they thought, and they only need support with day-to-day conveniences.
Does your senior need someone with them all the time? Do they need someone to help them with very important things like self-care? Or are they more independent and need assitance with running errands and chores around the home.
Categorize your family member into a level of independence, and you will begin to know how much personal care they really need.
Senior Home Care is really understanding the level of independence that your senior has, and knowing how to fill that independence gap for them to have a sense of well-being.
Being able to find the exact care your senior needs, will increase the well-being of senior, while providing a sense of fulfillment to your and your family.
Michael Walecki is the Communication Specialist at Excel Care Nursing Services. When he’s not serving clients, he's either reading books or cycling on some backroad in Milton or Caledon. He calls
Mississauga, Ontario home.
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