Seasonal Home Care for Greater Boston Families
The holiday season is upon us – whether you celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanza, Solstice, or New Year’s - with winter just around the corner. ‘Tis a joyous season for friends and family, but it is also a time when we find ourselves overbooked and spread thin. When you have an aging loved one who needs your attention, that holiday stress is compounded. This is true for both adult children and their aging parents. Seasonal home care assistance can be a great help for Greater Boston families with elderly loved ones.
Holiday Stress
Perhaps Mom is normally self-sufficient and can organize her routine and keep her house in order with minimal help from the family. But to prepare for the holiday season, she will have gifts to buy and wrap, family events to attend, social events to attend, meals to cook, and more. Suddenly, her daily routine is disrupted and she needs help to cope with the extra activity. As she might tell you, she’s not as young as she used to be!
The holiday season is just as busy for adult children, and things can get complicated if your parent relies on family visits for company. The effects of socialization on senior health can’t be underestimated. Isolation can lead to problems including depression, health issues and cognitive decline. If your senior relies on your visits for social interaction, add that to the growing list of responsibilities you have this holiday season.
Holiday Blues
The American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry says that the holidays can be a difficult time for seniors. It can be a time of reflection when they miss loved ones who are no longer with them or even mourn lost traditions. Seniors may also miss family living too far away and unable to travel. It’s natural to feel some "holiday blues," but it is essential to look out for the differences between that and full-blown depression.
One option to help Mom and her family who help her year-round is seasonal professional living assistance. This understandably may seem like a drastic step: overall, Mom is fine, she’s not in need of permanent care at this stage of her life. But it’s important to remember that professional at-home living assistance doesn’t have to be a full-time, round-the-clock care. Support at home from a caregiver could be seasonal. A caregiver could come around temporarily for the short time of the year when she needs a little extra help, and her family has a little less time to spend with her.
Consider the immediate benefits. A professional caregiver can help Mom with, not only holiday endeavors, but also everyday tasks, like cleaning, meal prep, driving or running errands. Think of the busy roads and malls during this time, or even unexpected snow or icy weather. A professional caregiver can help her navigate the chaos to shop and even help with gift-wrapping.
A particularly popular service during the holiday season is companion care. Whether Mom has less company because you are more occupied, or is lonely because she's missing Dad or other family or friends, having a professional caregiver to help pass the time, chat and keep her mind active, or even play a card game, could make a difference not only to her mental health, but her physical health, too.
Flexible Home Care
Seasonal home care is flexible. Simply talk to your aging parent about the times of day they need help with the most during the holiday season and a home care professional can visit your loved one as often as she needs. Starting with eight hours of respite care per week will give Mom and the caregiver a real chance to bond. If this turns out to be too much, you can always scale back at a later date. It’s much easier to book too much and peel back than to try to organize more care if you find that what you’ve organized is not adequate for Mom.
It’s also important to remember that this seasonal care isn’t just for her. It could help get your entire family through a hectic time of year. Nobody wants to leave a parent or loved one alone during the holidays, but time is a limited resource, especially for adult children with a family of their own. Far too often, leaving Mom alone leaves adult children with feelings of guilt. Merely knowing that Mom is in good hands can let you make the most of the time that you spend apart and provide peace of mind.
Hiring seasonal care also gives you a head start should your loved one’s needs evolve into routine care. Having an existing relationship with a professional home care agency and a caregiver could make it so much easier for her to accept help when that time comes and will make that transition into regular home care easier.
About Visiting Angels Newton/Canton
Visiting Angels Newton/Canton MA is an award-winning home care agency that has been providing quality in-home care services to seniors and people with disabilities for over eighteen years. Countless families have benefited from our respite home care, dementia and Alzheimer’s care, companionship service, live-in and 24-hour assistance, transitional aid, and elderly home care services in Dedham, Needham, Newton, Norwood, Westwood, Boston’s (Upper) Back Bay, Brookline, Canton, Dedham, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Natick, Roslindale, Stoughton, Watertown, Wellesley, and West Roxbury, and neighboring communities in Massachusetts. The non-medical assistance Visiting Angels Newton/Canton provides can significantly impact your loved one’s happiness and quality of life.
Call us at (617) 795-2727 to book a free in-home consultation with one of our knowledgeable case managers today!