Why Choose a Home Care Agency?

Perhaps you’re not as steady on your feet as you once were, maybe you’re finding it more difficult to cook, clean and shop for yourself. Perhaps you’re having trouble performing daily tasks like washing and dressing. When age catches up with us it can be extremely frightening for lots of reasons, but not least because many older people worry about losing their homes and having to go into residential care.

However, in many cases it’s not necessary to uproot and completely change your life in this way. It may be possible instead to employ an agency home carer to help look after you and ensure you’re safe and well, whilst enabling you to carry on living in the home you love for as long as possible.

Maintain Your Independence

There are lots of things to love about getting old. You can start telling it like it is and no one will bat an eyelid. You can have as many cats as you like. You can spend your time enjoying your hobbies, watching TV or having a cheeky sherry at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. You can get up when you want to and go to bed when you want to. You can spend lots of time with your grandchildren.

However, moving into a care home can change all that and when you’re completely compos mentis, it’s pretty irritating to suddenly start being treated like a child again after all those years of being an independent adult!

The Problem with Residential Care

There’s evidence to show that older people who move to care homes quickly become institutionalised and are less likely to carry on doing things for themselves. A recent BBC programme rather perfectly demonstrated this with ‘The Young Ones’, which was shown last year. The programme took six older celebrities and placed them together in a home designed to transport them back to the 1970s, complete with décor, TV and food from the decade.

In addition, the residents were treated as if they were their 70s selves, for example, they weren’t helped to get up the stairs, carry their suitcases or cook. They were asked to do tasks and carry out job like activities. In other words they were treated as an adult would expect to be (which is often not the way we treat older people in the UK).

The experiment was designed to show that our expectations of older people can detrimentally affect their independence. This was perfectly illustrated as TV legend Derek Jameson struggled to get his heavy suitcase up the stairs, complaining all the way – but, when he got to his room and realised he’d done it, his attitude quickly changed from ‘can’t do’ to ‘can do’.

The point being that in many cases being put in an institution (and a care home is an institution, even if it’s a very nice one) can breed institutionalised behaviour and suddenly people who have relied on themselves for a lifetime forget that they are actually independent and quickly deteriorate until they become dependent.

Of course, there are lots of instances where residential care is the best option, but there are other choices available too. Employing an agency home carer allows the cared for person to remain in control, which makes it much more likely that they’ll maintain their independence for longer and live a happy and fulfilling life.

If you’d like to know more about hiring a home carer you can visit the government website by clicking here. You’ll find lots of information about funding for home care and useful advice about your options.   

AUTHOR BYLINE 

Glen Marsh is a part-time nurse and blogger for St Georges Care Agency - the experts in domiciliary and residential care in Essex and beyond.