National Wellness Month is all about taking care of yourself. The goal is to be happier and reduce stress. How can home health care services help you? It depends on your role when it comes to your parents’ care.

An AARP study found that 36 percent of unpaid caregivers feel high levels of emotional stress from their caregiving duties, and 21 percent of them feel alone. With 58 percent of family caregivers reporting that they have to help with medical or nursing tasks, it’s not surprising that family caregivers start to feel overwhelmed and stressed.

What Types of Medical and Nursing Tasks Are You Doing?

Family caregivers often have to help their aging parent with wound care. Suppose a parent has diabetes and develops sores or lesions on the bottom of the feet. In that case, it’s often up to the family caregiver to keep the wounds cleaned, change bandages, and apply antibacterial ointments.

If your parent goes in for surgery, the surgical team may ask you to check the bandages and make sure the sutures are doing their job. If they’ve popped, you’ll be the one looking at the wound and determining if there’s a problem. If there’s an infection, you’ll be the one to alert the medical team.

Your dad has diabetes, but his stroke left him unable to give himself his insulin injections. As the primary family caregiver, that’s likely your role now. If you’ve never given him an injection before, it’s a challenge you may not be prepared to face. You’re not trained to do it, and that adds to your stress.

Your mom has a low-salt diet and has to watch her fluid intake due to kidney disease. You have to carefully monitor her water intake and make foods that are safe for her. Any error in judgment on your part could affect her health, and that’s a lot of pressure.

What If You Didn’t Have to Do It All and They Had Home Health Care Providers?

Have you looked at home health care services? If you’re among the more than half of family caregivers helping with medical tasks like wound care, injections, or feeding tubes, it’s time to ask your mom or dad’s doctor about having skilled nurses come to help out.

With a nurse taking care of IV lines, catheter care, feeding tubes, injections, and wound care, you have more time for self-care. While the nurse is caring for your mom or dad, use the time to get work done, meditate, or engage in a stress-reducing exercise routine like Tai Chi. It takes one phone call to our home health care agency to get started.

Sources: https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/ppi/2020/05/full-report-caregiving-in-the-united-states.doi.10.26419-2Fppi.00103.001.pdf

If you or a loved one are considering Home Health Care Services near Lititz PA, contact the caring staff at Extended Family Care of Lancaster. Call today at (717) 205-2174.

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Stephen Sternbach

CEO at Extended Family Care Services

With over 35 years of experience, Stephen Sternbach has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Extended Family Care Services since 1987. After the sale of the New York and New Jersey operations of Extended Family Care Services, Sternbach brought the company private where he remains President and CEO of this 40-million dollar company. With Sternbach at the helm, Extended Family Care Services employs more than 650 employees, in six offices throughout Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

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