Senior Care Plan to Help Caregivers

Going into a caregiving role with a loved one without a senior care plan can lead to a build of up stress and tension. Fortunately, you can eliminate caregiver stress by organizing your goals with a care plan from the beginning. By the end of this article you will fully understand how to devise a senior care plan to help caregivers while providing the best care for your loved one.

Understand your Loved One’s Needs

To best assess what your loved one’s need are you should complete an informal evaluation of them before you bring external care into your home. Your evaluation will likely take several sessions. Your loved one might become suspicious of you if you badger them with questions. Instead, observe your loved one and mark what their capabilities are.

Prioritize their Needs

Take the assessment that you have now completed and analyze it. You will notice that there are some areas in the assessment that are more critical than others. For example, if your loved one is not bathing regularly that is a more urgent issue than them being unable to utilize their telephone. Prioritize which issues are most pressing for your loved one to have the best possible quality of life.

Create a schedule:

Once you have arranged the issues in order of importance, take each item and determine how often it needs to be done. Some of the tasks your loved one needs will need to be completed daily, while others will only need to be completed weekly. Create a task list to ensure your loved one’s needs are consistently met. Additionally, make sure that you include specific times. Your plan will be more effective if it is precise.

Arrange the Senior Care Plan:

Now that you have created your schedule you can determine where you fit in. What are you able to handle? What are you able to realistically fit into your schedule? Be honest with yourself, as many of the issues your loved one is facing will only get worse in the years to come. Once you know what your role is, reach out to your care team and ask their input. What responsibilities do they feel comfortable taking on? Make sure that everyone on your care team understands their responsibilities. Most importantly, ensure that this plan is forward thinking. The way you have written your plan it should be effective unless there is a major status change with your loved one.

Make a Backup Senior Care Plan:

Do not allow yourself to be caught without a plan if something goes wrong. Take control of your schedule. For each item on your needs list you should have a primary person, a secondary person, and an auxiliary person.

If you have any questions about our tips for a senior care plan to help caregivers, please contact us today!