Skilled nursing care is a crucial part of a successful recovery after an extended hospital stay, elective surgery, or medical procedure. During your time in a skilled nursing facility, you will have support as you recover, including pain management and physical, occupational, and speech therapy visits throughout your stay. However, simply returning home after your discharge without any support to bridge your recovery back in your house is ineffective and can even be dangerous.
Fortunately, home care services are there to support you as you return home and continue your recovery.
Why do I need additional support at home?
During your skilled nursing stay, you are receiving intensive therapy and nursing services. This means someone is always there to assist you with any pain management, wound care, or personal care tasks as you need it. A caregiver is there to remind you to work on your prescribed range of motion exercises and you can enjoy three healthy meals in the dining room (that you didn’t have to cook!).
When you return home, you won’t have that kind of 24-hour care or support. Instead, you will need to focus on your recovery while still managing tasks like meal preparation, grocery shopping, laundry, and light housekeeping. Add those chores to your recovery regimen of medication, outpatient therapy, and other prescribed exercises, and it can become overwhelming and exhausting quickly.
Having a consistent and friendly caregiver arrive at your home regularly to assist with household and personal care tasks can increase your overall energy while increasing your chance of a successful recovery.
What can a home care caregiver do for me?
Depending on your personal preferences and needs, a home care caregiver can assist with a variety of tasks that can give you the time and energy you need to recover more quickly. Here at CaringGivers, we can support at-home recovery by:
- Preparing meals, including running to the grocery store to pick up your favorite foods
- Driving you to and from outpatient therapy appointments or other medical follow-up visits
- Performing light housekeeping around the house, including laundry services
- Providing medication reminders so that you can feel confident you are taking the right pill at the right time
- Offering assistance with personal care tasks such as bathing and dressing. This could be providing verbal cues or offering hands-on assistance, depending on what you need to feel safe
- Reminding you to perform any prescribed range of motion exercises so you don’t feel stiff or in pain
- Offering assistance for transferring or moving about your home can significantly reduce your risk of falling
- Giving you reminders to drink plenty of fluids and keep up with nutritious eating so that you can avoid dehydration and any infection that might come with it
- Friendly companionship visits to ensure you are feeling well and that you are doing things that make you feel like yourself, like getting outside or enjoying an afternoon cup of tea
At CaringGivers, we work closely with our clients, their family members, and their medical team to ensure we are providing the support they need to recover safely and quickly.
When should I request home care services?
When possible, don’t wait until your discharge day to schedule home services. While the team here at CaringGivers does everything we can to meet the needs of emergency or last-minute requests, you can feel less stressed and more prepared when you schedule your home care services before your actual discharge date.
As you work with your skilled nursing team, you will know when discharge is approaching. Be sure to tell them that you would like to get home care services set up ahead of time. Here at CaringGivers, we are happy to set up a consultation while you are still at your skilled nursing facility and work to ensure your transition to home is seamless.
Contact us today to learn more about our home care services and to tell us more about your needs.