What Kind of Extra Help with Fall Prevention Can Home Health Care Provide?
Having a fall prevention plan is absolutely crucial, especially if your elderly family member is at high risk of falling. Home health care services can offer additional fall prevention assistance for your senior. This is even more important if she’s alone for a great deal of the day.
Tracking New Risk Factors
One of the issues that your senior may be facing is that she’s developing new risk factors for falling. That might include changes to her health or changes in her physical environment. Having a home health care provider right there with your senior can ensure that someone notices and is aware of what’s happening.
Logging Near Falls
When you ask your senior if she’s fallen, she may be perfectly truthful in telling you that she hasn’t fallen. But has she had any near misses? That means she almost fell but didn’t. Home health care providers who are there with your senior consistently are much more likely to recognize the signs of a near fall and they can keep track of the circumstances that contributed and share that information with you and your senior’s doctor.
Teaching Family Caregivers How to Use Assistive Tools
There are tools that you can use safely, like a gait belt, to help your elderly family member with mobility issues. But if you’re not sure how to use them, you might find them cumbersome and a little bit intimidating. Home health care providers can show you the right ways to use these tools safely.
Reminding Seniors to Use All Assistive Devices Available
Many aging adults don’t like using assistive devices like walkers or canes. It’s difficult to cope with some of those tools emotionally, even if your aging family member understands that she physically needs the tool. Reminders can help, especially from someone who is right there helping your senior.
Helping with Exercise
Your elderly family member may be better able to exercise than you might think, even if she’s in a chair most of the day. Little bits of exercise here and there can help her to grow stronger and can improve her balance. All of that helps her to better avoid a fall.
Home health care providers can help with so many different issues your senior may be having. But if she’s at high risk of falling, there is a lot that they can do to add layers to your senior’s fall prevention plan.