Part of the challenge of aging is that daily tasks become more difficult. When family caregivers are ready to line up extra help from home care services, seniors might not be on board with the idea. Understanding more about how this type of assistance can benefit them is a good start. It also helps for family caregivers to learn more about why seniors are wary about the idea.
Fear of Losing Independence
When most seniors decide to age in place, they do so because they want to hang onto their independence. Accepting help can sometimes translate in their heads to losing independence and having someone telling them what they can and can’t do. In reality, elder care is about supporting independence for seniors as much as possible.
Need for Personal Space
Seniors who live alone or who are used to their routines as they are may worry about losing their personal space and their privacy. Having someone else there with them more often can feel a bit intrusive at first. One way around this is for families to bring home care providers in slowly and on a schedule that works for aging adults. When seniors feel more in control, they’re less likely to feel as if their homes have been invaded.
Denial
Anyone over a certain age has probably had that experience where they suddenly realized that the age they feel in their heads is not their chronological age. For seniors, it can be jarring to suddenly realize that their abilities are changing. Denial about cognitive and physical changes is not unusual, and it’s a common reason for seniors to resist help from home care providers. The problem is that denial can blind seniors to safety issues that could lead to big problems, like a fall or other injury that can have lifelong effects.
Misconceptions
When seniors don’t know anything about home care assistance, it’s a lot more difficult to understand how it can be helpful. Worse, misconceptions about professional caregivers mean that aging adults associate elder care with illness or other negative situations. Learning more about caregiving can help seniors to let go of some of the misinformation they’ve believed in the past.
Encouraging Acceptance
So how can family caregivers encourage seniors to get on board with the idea of having help? Leading with empathy and patience really helps a lot. Trying to understand the underlying causes of the refusal can go a long way in the process of moving toward acceptance. When seniors feel like they’re driving the process of working with home care providers, they are more likely to give assistance a try.
Resistance to home care often occurs because of fear, even when seniors are fairly confident for the most part. Aging is a vulnerable stage of life and seniors face a variety of different challenges that make life more difficult. Working through the issues that seniors bring up can take some time, but it’s worth spending the time and energy to get to the root cause so that seniors feel secure about having assistance.
If you or an aging loved one are considering home care in Burnsville, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.
