24 Hour Elderly Care
Written by:
Jeffrey Grossman
Published:
November 19, 2019
24-hour elderly care provides a solution to aging adults and their families who don’t want to transition a loved one into an assisted living facility.
But when it comes to hiring a 24-hour caregiver, people often don't realize that there's a difference between 24-hour in-home care and live-in care.Are you interested in learning more about 24/7 in-home senior care vs. live-in care?In this article, you'll get an answer to "What is 24-hour care at home?" and learn how it's different from live-in care.
The Difference Between 24-hour Elderly Care and Live-in Care
24-hour Home Care
Watching loved ones age is a difficult process filled with emotional decisions. As a family member or primary caregiver, you may see a decline in a loved one’s health and need to reach out for help. In-home care provides elderly adults with hands-on assistance with daily tasks. With in-home care, professional caregivers enter into a senior's home to help families care for aging adults. Sometimes families simply need help a few hours or days each week. But as loved ones age, their needs and levels of care may increase. Not everyone caring for a dependant, older adult can provide the necessary care—let alone 24 hours per day.24 hour home health care for the elderly provides around-the-clock caregiver support without requiring a loved one to leave their residence.
24 hour elderly home care typically provides two caregivers in 12-hour shifts to cover both the day and nighttime hours. In some cases, three caregivers will rotate for 8-hour shifts at a time. One of the benefits of 24-hour care is the constant rotation of caregivers, meaning there is no time where the patient goes unwatched. The 2-3 person rotation ensures that a caregiver is always awake and readily alert to oversee the patient’s care.
In addition, 24/7 home care can be helpful for short- or long-term periods. For instance, if an older adult undergoes an operation, 24-hour post-surgery home care may be needed during their recovery. In other cases, long-term older adult home care is particularly helpful. Patients who suffer from dementia may require ongoing 24-hour home care to provide critical services such as daily medication reminders.
In-home elder care solutions in Charlottesville, Richmond, Williamsburg, VA and Charleston, SC.
Live-in Senior Care
Live-in senior care is not the same as 24-hour home care. Elderly live-in home care provides a dedicated caregiver to your loved one for daily support. This dedicated caregiver will literally “live in” the patient’s home providing close, one-on-one care. A benefit to live-in home care is it limits the number of caregiver interactions to one person, unlike 24-hour senior care. Keeping the same caregiver day after day provides consistency for the patient. However, a primary difference between live-in care and 24-hour elderly care is the consecutive number of hours caregivers are actively caring. Live-in caregivers receive a mandatory 8 hours of sleep per night, while 24-hour care provides a new caregiver during the evening. In general, there are a number of risks inherent to live-in care. First, seniors place all of their trust in one person and can be left without a backup solution in the event that the caregiver’s availability changes. Second, the live-in caregiver is permitted to sleep and occasionally leave the home. Therefore, an older adult will go unsupervised unless a family member steps in or additional care coverage is requested. For these reasons, a 24-hour caregiver is often better than a live-in caregiver if you want someone looking after your loved one at all hours of the day.
24-hour Home Care Services for the Elderly
To recap, 24-hour care provides multiple caregivers in shifts for around-the-clock care. Live-in senior care, on the other hand, provides one caregiver who physically lives in the patient’s home for daily assistance.With 24-hour in-home care, your loved one will have easy access to a caregiver who is awake and alert at any hour of the day. But with live-in care, your loved one will only have care during the hours of the day that the caregiver isn't sleeping.At Commonwise Home Care, our 24-hour caregivers assist with daily activities such as housework, toileting, personal hygiene, ambulation, meal preparation, and a list of other care management and personal care services. Regardless of the length of time spent with an older adult, providing compassionate, relational care is always our standard.Additionally, our professional RN care managers play an active role in the management of 24-hour care clients. Commonwise is, therefore, well suited to deliver higher quality, round-the-clock service to clients.Home care is not an easy conversation, but we are here to walk you through it. Whether your loved one needs total patient care by a registered nurse or live-in care by a dedicated caregiver, we are on call to answer questions and assist. To learn more about the Commonwise difference, call 434.202.8565.
In-home elder care solutions in Charlottesville, Richmond, Williamsburg, VA and Charleston, SC.