Exploring Home Health Care Services

Posted on: 15 August 2018

If you have a parent that's ailing from a condition that recently hospitalized them, you probably have a choice on your hands. People who are well enough to leave the hospital but not well enough to be left home alone to care for themselves can either be put in a nursing facility, or you can hire a nurse to come to them. Here's why the latter is always better.

Familiar Environment

Whether or not your parent has any mental conditions, it seems that the older people get, the more comfortable they are with things that are familiar to them. Waking up in a strange place with unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells can be alarming at first for anyone, and leave your parent feeling anxious or unwell. If they have a current health condition like high blood pressure or a wound or incision that's still healing, any additional anxiety or stress can potentially slow down the healing process and keep them from becoming well enough to be fully on their own.

Less Chance of Infection

You've probably seen the stories on the news - hospitals are constantly struggling with the outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their facilities. These forms of bacteria can be extremely dangerous and life-threatening to healthy adults, so it should be obvious that they're nothing you want your parent to come into contact with while they're recovering.

If you have a nurse come to your parent in their own home, they're at little to no risk of coming into contact with one of these forms of bacteria. The nurse will be primarily making rounds to other homes, so they are unlikely to come into contact with anything deadly from a hospital. In addition, at-home nurses maintain excellent hygiene practices to ensure that they're not passing anything from patient to patient, so you can rest easy about your parent becoming ill from something like a staph infection.

Sense of Independence

Finally, don't forget that your parent still wants to feel like a capable adult. There's no better way to do this than to let them be in their own home, on their own terms, with someone there to just help out. The nurse can take care of any medical needs that your parent has while still allowing them to feel like they're independent and responsible for their own well-being. They'll be happier, which may help them to recover more readily.

Going from a hospital straight to home typically isn't a great idea, but many people have mixed results at nursing homes, too. If your parent needs more time to recover, hire at home nursing services to care for them until they're fully healthy again.