When a Loved One Only Wants Your Help

Serving your family member while they are advanced in age or battling a sickness is a rewarding and beautiful opportunity. You get to spend time together. You have a chance to physically and mentally care for their needs, making sure they feel comfortable and loved.

But at some point, you may need help by choosing caregiving services. If your loved one is reluctant to receive help from a stranger, here are some tips that might help.

Helping Your Loved One Receive Help from Home Care

Once you learn more about the offerings of home care services, you can ease your loved one into accepting help from someone other than a family member.

• Express Your Need for Help: Set your loved one’s mind at ease by opening up about your needs. Your loved one may feel like a burden by needing hired help. But if you express that you are the one that requires help by hiring an assistant for your tasks, they may feel more open to the idea.
• Start with Housekeeping Duties: Sometimes, your aging loved one may feel more comfortable hiring someone for housekeeping and general home upkeep. Once they find how pleasant it can be to have a professional in the home, their fears about strangers will diminish. Then they will be more open to having a home care assistant in the house to help them with personal hygiene and more intimate tasks.
• Find Something in Common: Introduce the home care assistant by finding something in common with your loved one. Perhaps they like to read the same books or are both interested in similar television programs. Maybe the home care assistant also likes to play tennis or watch documentaries. Take the stranger part out of it by introducing a common topic they can turn to from the start.
• Talk About How a Home Care Assistant Would Ease Your Worries: Your aging loved one may insist that they do not need help. But if you communicate your feelings of worry for them when you are not around and express how it would put your mind at ease to have someone checking in, they may appease your wishes.

If your loved one is worried about bringing a stranger into the house to care for them, involve them in the process of choosing a home care assistant. Let them meet the team and learn about each person who would visit your home.

Family caregivers are comfortable and familiar. Ease your loved one’s worries about accepting help from a home care assistant by finding a trusted provider for in-home health services. Please reach out to our Bonita Springs Healthcare Services team to find a resolution for your home care needs.