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.

How to Stand Out From Other Nursing Candidates

No one would ever describe nursing as an easy profession but with the right attitude and a lot of hard work, it can be an incredibly rewarding career path full of new challenges and plenty of variety in terms of your workload. Despite the recent drop in the number of UK based nursing candidates, there’s still stiff competition for every position. So what can you do to ensure that your application for a college place stands out from other candidates? 

Read on to find out:

Nurse Training

In the light of the recent rise in university course fees, applications for nursing courses have actually increased, not least because course fess for successful entrants are paid by the NHS. A nursing course provides an opportunity to work in the midst of a medical environment and gain valuable experience throughout the time spent learning.

 

Think Carefully About Your Course

Before you decide on the course for you think carefully about the type of area you’d like to specialise in. It can be easy to make a mistake without gaining the relevant experience, for example, you may choose midwifery because you like working with babies, but you’ll actually spend most of your time with pregnant couples.

Look for experience or part time work in different environments such as care homes, hospices and doctor’s surgeries. The more time you spend working before you apply, the more weight you’ll give your application.

Why Choose Nursing?

There are lots of reasons to consider becoming a nurse or midwife but earning a huge amount of money is not one of them. Whilst becoming a nurse is just as valid a route to the upper levels of medicine as any other, most people who enter the profession do so because they care. Many applicants have had a great experience with a nurse that’s inspired them, but it’s advisable to leave this out of your application as admissions tutors will want to learn about your suitability, not the suitability of someone who looked after you or a loved one.

Your Key Skills

Many people make the mistake of describing the skills they have in a sort of list format, without demonstrating how they’ve acquired those skills. For example, if you’ve volunteered with dementia patients, worked with sick children, or spent valuable time with a physiotherapist or similar then talk about those experiences and the skills you learned from them.

Quardruple Checking

If you need to hand pen your application then write the whole thing on a separate piece of paper first. That way you can ensure you know exactly what to copy out and you’re far less likely to make a mistake. Use professional business language and if you’re not sure how you’re application reads get a trusted person to take a look at it before you copy it out.

Once you’re happy with everything, start copying it over onto your application form. Take regular breaks to avoid going wrong. Don’t be disheartened if it takes two or three attempts to be accepted on a nursing course and approach filling out applications and going to interviews as valuable practice.

AUTHOR BYLINE

Gary Neil is an avid medical blogger and father of three baby girls. When Gary isn't looking after his four favourite ladies, he is a residential care expert at St Georges Care Agency

- experts in providing personalised, high quality and caring domiciliary and residential care services in Essex and the South of England.

How To Go One Step Further With Fancy Dress By Using Cosmetics & Disguises

Fancy dress costumes are a great way to express yourself at a party as they allow you to act out of character and mimic anyone you please, from your favourite superheroes to your most beloved celebrities. But as you get older and get more fancy dress parties under your belt, you may begin to feel that there’s a Groundhog Day element to each event – the same bog-standard costumes will keep making a reappearance and outfits will become less and less imaginative.

So for your next fancy dress party, why don’t you try using some cosmetics and disguises to enhance your costume and help you blend effortlessly into your chosen character?

If you’re going as a fairly realistic figure, such as Captain Jack Sparrow or Zorro, using makeup and disguises as part of your fancy dress costume can really help you create an authentic appearance at themed parties. From eyelashes and hair extensions to beards, body sprays and special effect scars, the range of cosmetics and disguises that can be applied to fancy dress costumes is huge.   

Here is your guide to using cosmetics and disguises to give your fancy dress costume that real ‘wow’ factor! 

Makeup 

When it comes to fancy dress, looking ‘normal’ goes out the window. The nature of fancy dress parties is to go all-out to be out-of-the-ordinary, so being conservative with your appearance will not win you attention OR admiration.  

If you’re going as an army man, grab some brown and khaki face paint and get working on an all over body camouflage suit. If you’re dressing up as Dracula, get some white face paint for a base coat and some red paint for the blood. And if you ARE going as the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow don’t forget to pick up plenty of mascara for the finishing touches to your costume.  

Wearing makeup with your costume, regardless of your gender, is guaranteed to add an extra dimension to your get-up and ensure you stand out from the crowd in a memorable outfit that people will remember for years to come. 

‘Accessor-eyes’

As the name suggests, ‘accessor-eyes’ are accessories for your eyes. These accessories are essentially a range of cool and colourful non-prescription contact lenses. You can get ultraviolet ones for a scary effect, yellow cats eyes perfect for pussy costumes, bloody red eyes for zombie costumes and many, many more. 

Special Effects

Go the extra mile at your next fancy dress event by showing off your costume with some special effects. From fake blood to gory gashes in your arms and head, adding some special effects to your fancy dress costume will scare your friends silly.   

Special effects for fancy dress come in many forms, from latex sleeves with blood and scars to tooth wax for pirate costumes. They make a great addition to any costume idea and are especially handy for those seeking to achieve the dead or zombie appearance for a big Halloween ‘do. 

But it’s not all blood and gore when it comes to employing special effects in your fancy dress costume. You will find a vast range of products you to give you that edge at your costume party, from skin-embedded golf balls and cigarettes to realistic plastic bones that can be made to look as though they’re sticking out of your skin. 

Whichever costume you decide to wear at your next fancy dress party, make sure you get your hands on some cosmetics and disguises to really complete your look! 

AUTHOR BYLINE

Dan Cartwright just loves sharing his party planning advice online. When he's not at his keyboard broadcasting his expertise Dan is a customer sales assistant at the Partyman Shop  - your number one party and event supplies store in the South East.