Do Your Parents Need Personal Health Care at Home? Look Out for These Signs

As your parents get older, you may notice them beginning to slow down. They may be behaving differently, eating less, or losing interest in the activities they used to enjoy. You may be concerned about them and wondering if they need help. As people age, needing help can be unavoidable. But sometimes, asking for help can be hard. Naturally, you want to protect your aging parents and want only the best for them, particularly when it comes to their health and well-being. This is where Personal Health Care is necessary. To know if your aging parents need help, below are signs to watch out for:

Increased Forgetfulness and Wandering

Your parents may be declining when they are increasingly becoming forgetful and experiencing memory loss. They may be skipping their meals or missing their appointments. Are they having problems recalling the date, time, or other basic knowledge? In older adults, memory loss is common, but it may indicate a more serious medical problem like dementia. 

In addition, getting lost or wandering is a symptom for people who have dementia. People with dementia may forget how to get to places they are familiar with, return from regular work, try or want to go home despite being at home, and become restless. Identify any underlying problems by taking your parents to a doctor for an accurate diagnosis. Then, discuss available in-home care services to them to make sure your parents can stay independent and live comfortably and safely in their home. 

Behavioral Changes

As your parents head into their golden years, general behavioral changes can negatively affect their mental health and well-being. Such changes can also indicate the need for additional care at home. Increased anxiety can be a sign that your parents need help and that it may be time to determine if they have underlying health problems. Other behavioral changes you should look for include aggression, hallucinations, delusions, and increased depression. Alzheimer’s disease can manifest in symptoms like Sundowner’s Syndrome. When the sun goes down, a person who suffers from this symptom may become confused, disoriented, or overwhelmed. When it gets darker, such behavior becomes quite out of character. While it can be tough, you may need to talk to your parents and ask them if they are fine and provide home care solutions that help with their everyday lives. 

Poor Personal Hygiene

How your parents look can indicate whether they have a problem dealing with their daily lives. Your parents may need help if you notice them not caring about personal hygiene anymore. Their well-kept look isn’t only about looking good. Being able to maintain one’s appearance has psychological benefits like improved confidence and self-esteem. If your parents are letting themselves go, they may not head outside and interact with others. They may isolate themes from loved ones and friends. 

Your parents can benefit from having a caregiver and companion by their side during this tough time. The caregiver can offer help with your parents’ personal care needs. 

Unmaintained House

Having a clean and well-maintained house has a lot of mental benefits. If the house of your parents is looking disorderly, this could be because of deeper underlying emotional struggles. When you visit your parents, look around their house and notice unusual things such as dirty dishes, expired food, possible hazards, mail stacking up, funky smells, and an empty fridge. 

Depending on what’s not in order in your parents’ house, this could mean they are struggling with a certain thing. For instance, unopened mail can mean your parents want to avoid paying because of personal finance problems they do not want to talk to you about. An uncleaned house can mean demotivation or mobility problems you probably do not know about.