What Are the Types of Home Health Care?
It can be challenging to know what home health services entail. This difficulty stems from the fact that home health care professionals can be responsible for a wide array of services. Having a guide to the types of home health care might be helpful, so we thought we’d make one. And if you’re considering the types of home care and find that you need any we list, consider partnering with Good Shepherd to meet your needs.
Medical Support
The first and most prominent home health care service is medical support. Medical support includes taking vitals, administering medications, and pain control. These are all the things you think about when you picture a home health aide.
Medical support is the most common type of home care because it fills a role that aging adults may struggle with. However, you may see some specialized services administered by licensed home health nurses or therapists. A specialized set of services may include IV medications, wound care, and physical, speech, or occupational therapy. This type of medical support may only be temporary or a means for an older person to transition back to their life from before an accident or hospitalization.
Support Services
Few people think of social services when they picture the responsibilities of a home health staff. We can assure you that this service is one of the most crucial types of home health care. If you already have a picture of social assistance in your mind, it’s probably not far from what a home health aide provides.
A great home health care provider will provide support, access to community resources, and sometimes case managing for complex medical conditions. Social services are often rarer, but only because patients don’t always require them. Know that if you need to rely on your home care staff for these services, they are available.
Basic Assistance
Now we come to essential assistance, which is often undervalued when discussing the types of home care. Your provider will provide you with basic help with activities of daily living like dressing, bathing, and walking, but a home health aide can do much more.
It gets harder to do the daily tasks we take for granted as we age. If you or a loved one needs help with household tasks, like preparing meals, doing the laundry, grocery shopping, or transportation, an aide can help. Some of these tasks may sound trivial, but they can get more complicated for people as they age. Basic assistance is also aimed at helping with these tasks. For some seniors, these services are critical to living everyday life at home—where they want to be!
Now that you know the three types of home health care services, you can easily decide what you need. Be sure to communicate your needs before selecting an agency. If you need help finding the best home health care for your needs, contact the Good Shepherd Community to find quality home health care services in Central Minnesota.