Why I Love Residential Care Homes for the Elderly
There are many reasons to love residential care homes for the elderly, but the heart of my love for these homes is rooted in its ability to restore our elderly people back to our communities. In American culture, our elderly spend the majority of their time isolated and on the fringes of human interaction. As a result, many seniors suffer from boredom, loneliness, and depression.
A residential care home is a home in a residential neighborhood used for caring for the elderly. It is licensed and regulated as assisted living by the state of California. It is referred to as an RCFE or a board and care home. It generally is six elderly people living together receiving a multitude of services by care staff.
The greatest benefit of a residential care home is being with others in a small intimate environment that allows for real connections. We, time and time again, see our residents thrive by being with others. In a residential care home, there are people in the room next door and right down the hall. Just like in a family home. You share meals with others. You watch tv together. You share stories and memories. You connect. You make friends. Your world view becomes larger by the people and conversations you have on any given day. It gives you reason and purpose. It becomes family.
These quality connections and relationships cannot happen when an elderly person stays in their own home. They are also unlikely to happen in a large assisted living because there are too many people, both residents and staff, and each individual person lives in an isolated apartment. It is very easy to spend a lot of time alone in your apartment or room.
Residential care homes also provide better physical care because they have a smaller staff to resident ratio that allows for staff to truly know each resident and their needs. Staff has required ongoing training and is supervised by an administrator who is required even more training and continuing education. There is invaluable cooperative group knowledge to care for the elderly resident. Private home care cannot provide this.
What care can you expect at a residential care home?
Daily assistance with showers, toileting and oral hygiene. This helps keeps an eye on skin integrity watching for things like wounds, rashes, edema. This care also provides information about continence changes, bowel troubles and urinary pain or infection.
Daily exercise. This improves balance and strength, reducing falls, and possible critical hospitalizations.
Medication dispensing and administration.
Staff prepares nutritious meals and assures adequate fluid intake. Adequate fluids for the elderly is essential and is often a challenge. Staff will monitor for sufficient intake of both food and liquids. Adequate liquids are essential to prevent dehydration, urinary tract infections and low blood pressure at a minimum. Any of these ailments can snowball to critical health issues and hospitalizations.
It has been proven that living in an RCFE reduces hospitalizations.
I love residential care homes because I have seen that it significantly improves the quality of life for our elderly people on both an emotional and physical level.
