Home & Family

How to Take Care of Your Elderly Parent In Times of COVID-19

These are tough times. With the cases of COVID-19 still on the rise, there is no returning back to our normal lives yet. Life is especially harder for the elderly because, as studies show, they are more at risk for the virus.

Seniors who live alone in their homes need extra care more than ever. This pandemic takes a toll on everyone’s being, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Your elderly parent needs to be taken care of. If they’re in the nursing home, you need to visit them more often for that emotional and mental support. The problem is, many nursing homes do not allow visitors these days as a health and safety protocol.

The other option is to have your elderly patients stay in their homes. However, it’s hard for you to visit them and take care of them too, as this COVID-19 crisis affects everyone. With this, the best option is to secure the services of home care agencies. Hiring a caregiver not only relieves the family stress, but also provides mental support to your elderly. It ensures that your elderly parent is well-taken care of.

To find a reliable home care agency you can go online and search for a local agency, for example, you can type Home Care Agency in San Diego.

You need to stick together as a family to weather out this crisis. So aside from getting a caretaker, you can do your part in taking care of your elderly parents. Here are some of them:

Help Your Parents with their Daily Activities

The elderly cannot do everything by themselves. It does them good if you help them go about their daily life. Keep them healthy and safe and try to get involved with their daily activities as much as you can. Some of the things you can do are:

  • Dropping off some fresh and healthy meals to their home.
  • Maintaining their lawn by setting up a lawn care service.
  • Running some errands for your parents so that they won’t have to get out of the house. It’s safer if they’re just at home.
  • Do the groceries for your parents or if you don’t have the time, order online and have the stores deliver the goods and necessities to your parents’ home.
  • Keeping record of the medications and prescriptions of your parents. Check on them regularly.

Apply for Benefit Programs

COVID-19 is not only a health concern. It’s affecting every aspect of our lives, especially economically. On top of taking care of your parents, you need to seek help from others as well. The government has assistance and benefit programs that cover disability, heath, veteran status, income, and more.

There are programs that help your elderly parents with in-house services, prescription drugs, financial assistance, healthcare, transportation, nutrition, utility assistance, and others.

Check on Their Doctor

The most important aspect of your parents’ life at this point is their health. It only makes sense if you pay more attention to their health. Check on their prescriptions; inquire about their additional medications; get involved in their tele-appointments with their physician. Make sure that you schedule follow-up appointments with their doctor.

Convince your parents to discuss with their doctor any medical concerns they may be having. This may be harder than it sounds though since many elderly tend to keep their medical concerns to themselves. Sometimes, they are being completely honest with their state of health especially when talking with their doctor. So take the initiative to talk and discuss these matters with your parent’s doctor. Alert them of any medical concern that you may be aware of, things that your parents are not honest about with their doctors.

With the cases still on the rise, there is no telling when this pandemic will be over. We will have to live with this crisis for the time being. Just stay safe and take care of your overall well-being— yours and your parents’. It is key to maintaining seniors safe and one of the best ways is by keeping them at home. It can be daunting because seniors need extra care but you can always hire extra help.

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