How Involved Should Families Be with Seniors in Assisted Living?
Chances are, you have a family member who’s about to move into one of the assisted living facilities in your area. With the baby boomers reaching their late adulthood years, there has been a steady growth of seniors moving into these facilities so they can get more supervised care and a better quality of life as they deal with the different changes of growing old.
Since this is a highly emotional decision for the family, it’s not uncommon for you to wonder about how involved you should be in the care of your loved one.
Here, we help you understand your role better as a family member and how you could help give your loved one an excellent life while in assisted living:
You can be involved without being nosy.
You want your family member to feel comfortable and loved while in assisted living facilities and that’s what the staff is there for. You can be involved by making sure that you are available to talk with the team about matters regarding the care of your loved one.
You can also be present whenever you can without invading the space of the healthcare team to allow them to do their job right. If you see a problem, don’t criticize.
Instead, make suggestions that will help them improve the quality of care. Never step over the boundaries of employees because they know better than you when it comes to your loved one’s care.
Invest in quality time with your loved one.
Whenever you have the time to visit your loved one, make sure to spend your time well not only in caring for him but also in helping out the facility. Some spouses usually visit residents almost daily and aside from spending time with them, they also volunteer to help out with preparing meals or assisting other residents without interfering with the job of the staff. How you spend your time with your loved one is more important than the length of time you spend with him, so make every minute count.
Be an advocate but never feel entitled.
Staff members in assisted living facilities love family members who are advocates of their loved ones’ wellbeing. They are there when needed and they do everything to help out in the care of the residents.
But there are also times when families become too unrealistic about their expectations from the healthcare team. Some would start demanding that their loved one needs to be cared for by one nurse, but that can be very unrealistic in an assisted living setting where there’s no one-to-one staff-to-resident ratio.
As a family member, you only want the best for your loved one. After all, that’s the primary goal of sending him to an assisted living facility.
But you also need to know your boundaries when it comes to your involvement in the care of your loved one to maintain a good relationship with the staff and ultimately, provide the best care possible to the resident.
Fallbrook Assisted Living is proud to offer its services to Fremont, NE, and surrounding areas and cities: Arlington, Cedar Bluffs, Ames Nickerson, Fontanelle, Arlington, Leshara, Colon, and Hooper
