Starting to use home services for seniors can be overwhelming – especially if your loved one has concerns about accepting help. Get our best tips to successfully get started with in-home services while aging in place.
What happens when your parent wants to stay home but is resistant or even downright refuses to accept services into their home? The short answer? It starts with lawn care…
This is a common question that we get on Clarity Calls with potential concierge nursing and other senior care clients. The adult child is doing all the right things.
- They have had discussions about their parents’ goals of aging at home
- They have noticed some small changes in their parent’s safety or health
- They’ve done some research, and have found a company that can help meet their goals
TADA! It’s all done, right? Not so much. Because, sometimes when they come to their parent with this great plan, they get a big fat NO, not happening. So then what do we do? How can we start setting up in-home senior care if the person being cared for doesn’t want help?
Why Senior Care Services Can Be Hard to Accept
Before we explore how to get past this resistance, let’s dig a little deeper into why so many seniors push back against home help.
The fact is, allowing someone into your home to help with day-to-day tasks can feel pretty intimate and even invasive to folks who’ve never hired help before.
Maybe they are super particular about how the laundry is done or they have a specialized diet that has taken years for them to perfect. Maybe someone asking them questions about their healthcare makes them feel like they should know more than they do – whatever the reason, letting someone into your house and into your life can be stressful.
It’s no surprise, then, that the idea of hiring an in-home nurse or senior meal service, for example, can feel like an invasion of privacy or a step too far.
So, what can you do to get an aging parent the help they need to stay safe at home? There are two primary strategies we recommend to get started.
How to Get Started with Home Help for Seniors
In this situation, I recommend thinking a little smaller first: by considering services that are less invasive, don’t actually come into the home at all, but that can still help make their life easier.
Trying Chore Services for Seniors
The perfect example? Chore services for seniors. This can be a great first experience with accepting help from third parties and can help show a reluctant parent or loved one how beneficial some help can be.
Consider services like:
- Lawn care
- Snow shoveling
- Grocery delivery and/or pick-up
- Pharmacy delivery
- Amazon auto-shipments
- Meal prep services
Once your loved one gets comfortable with this kind of support, you may find them a lot more willing to accept other forms of in-home senior care.
Trying Services Together
Another option is to try out potential services together that they may need in the future. For example, the next time you go somewhere together, take an Uber or Lyft together rather than driving, so they can see how it works. In the same vein, take them with you to do your grocery pickup so they can see how easy it is!
You could also try to be at their home with them for their first couple of visits from an in-home nursing service or housekeeping service for the elderly. Having that emotional support can go a long way.
Need Help Getting Started?
If you’re struggling to get your loved one the support they need, you’re not alone. The phrase I always use that sends clients’ tight shoulders back down into their proper relaxed placement is, “Let’s start working towards conserving your energy.”
Everyone wants to buy back some energy these days – especially when we’ve added some years to life or when caregiving roles require more energy with less sleep.
At Navigate Wellness, we are passionate about aging in place & staying at home. We offer full-service concierge nursing in Columbia, MO, along with care navigation, mobility, IV infusions, wound care, and companion caregivers. We also have light-touch packages that allow folks to get used to health providers being in their home and help guide them through the aging process.
Contact Navigate Wellness today to learn more and book a free Clarity Call.
