How to Navigate 24 Hour Home Care

It is hard to know when a loved one might need 24 hour home care. If your senior loved one is determined to age in place they will likely urge you to consider arranging 24 hour home care. Your loved one will likely prefer this to assisted living facility or nursing home. So, what do you need to know about arranging 24 hour care? Below are some tips on how to successfully arrange round the clock care for your aging loved one.

 

Know If Your Loved One Needs 24 Hour Home Care

It can be difficult to know if your loved one truly needs 24 hour home care. There are several good rules to follow. If your loved one meets 2 of any of the following conditions, they are likely in need of 24 hour home care:

-Your loved one is over the age of 100

-They have had 3 falling incidents in the past year that have resulted in hospitalization

-Your loved one is unable to navigate their home safely without assistance

-They are unable to drive themselves

-Your aging loved one has dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease

-They are bedbound

-Your loved one lives alone

Knowing that your loved one is a candidate for 24 hour home care is only the beginning of the journey. There are many other factors to consider including your  budget, degree of care needed, and available back up.

 

 

Know the Cost of 24 Hour Home Care

When a senior needs assistance to the degree of requiring 24 Hour home care the affordability can become a major issue for many families. According to Genworth’s Cost of Care Calculator, it cost a family in Pennsylvania over $120,000 to keep their senior loved one in nursing home. Comparatively, a home health agency offering 24 hour home care would cost over $218,000, nearly double the cost of a nursing home. See the table below for a more detailed look at the variety in cost of care:

You can see from this chart that independent caregivers are significantly more affordable than both nursing homes and home health agencies. This is because the work you need to put into an independent caregiver will be greater. You need to interview, hire, and monitor independent caregivers to ensure that they are performing to your standards. However, if you are willing to put in the initial work in developing a care team it can be well worth it. Independent caregivers can be the most financially sustainable option available to families for 24 hour home care.

Know How to Supplement 24 Hour Home Care

There are many options to consider before you result to 24 hour home care. You can supplement care by several means. For example, you can utilize senior day care services to help offset the cost of care. When you use adult day services, your senior loved one will be supervised with other adults in a comfortable environment. Often these adult day care services will provide food and an activity daily to foster social engagement. Adult day care services typically operate between 8 – 10 hours per day during the week and have an average daily cost of $62.

Without a doubt adult day care facilities can save you significant amounts of money. If you can have care covered for 10 hours 5 days a week that will save you $65,000 in home care costs if you intend to go with a home care agency. When you utilize an independent caregiver, leveraging adult day care services can bring your care cost down to $6,400 a month.

Beyond utilizing adult day services, you can always benefit from additional family support. If your personal care team, made of family and friends, can cover a total of 40 hours a week that could save you $52,000 a year as opposed to using a home care agency. Consider, if you have 5 people on your personal care team, each person will only need to commit 8 hours a week to reach that goal. There are many things that a family can do to supplement 24 hour home care, they only need to use a little creative planning.

 

 

Know the Degree of Care Needed

You should begin planning for 24 hour care with an assessment of your loved one to learn their needs. To give you context, the care provided for someone with dementia will be different from someone who is bed bound. Create your own care plan and determine which tasks need to be performed daily, weekly, and so on. Knowing this will help you to understand where you and your family fit into the puzzle. This way you can fill any gaps with professional caregivers.

Additionally consider, if there is no local support for your aging loved one you might need to arrange care differently. Having a trusted neighbor or friend of the family close by can be integral in ensuring that the quality of care provided is up to your standards. 

 

 

Always Have A Backup Plan

As Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. No matter how thoroughly you plan, something will go wrong. It is an inevitability of caring for an aging loved one. That does not make you a bad daughter or son, it means that you are human. However, planning for some catastrophe can help you roll with the punches when something does happen.

For every scenario, develop an emergency backup plan. Know who your primary, secondary, and auxiliary resources are. This is especially important when planning 24 hour home care. Know who to call in case of emergency to ensure the safety of your aging loved one.

 

Do you think 24 hour home care is right for your loved one?

If you do, consider using Caregogi as a database to find independent caregivers in your area. We are here to help you every step of the way.Simply enter your loved one’s needs into our system and you will be matched with the perfect caregiver in your area.

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