Did you know that November is National Family Caregiver’s Month? This is a time to acknowledge and celebrate caregivers for all of the work they do. It is also important that we raise awareness about caregiving in our communities and show support to all of the caregivers in this country.
Happy National Family Caregivers Month from all of us at Home With Help®. In honor of this, we wanted to take the time to explain what caregiving means, who they are, and why you would need to hire one.
What is caregiving?
According to Oxford Languages and Google, caregiving is, “the activity or profession of regularly looking after a child or a sick, elderly, or disabled person.” Caregiving is helping with activities of daily living (ADLs). This can be anything from personal care to companionship, homemaking, and more. Typically, all tasks performed are non-medical in nature.
A few examples of this would be bathing, dressing, laundry, monitoring diet, medication reminders, grocery shopping, transportation, and more. If someone cannot perform the above on their own, then they need someone to help.
Who they are
Caregivers are people who help others that cannot perform activities of daily living on their own. Typically, a caregiver is a parent to young children, a child to their aging parents, a spouse of a disabled person, a friend or neighbor, or a hired professional.
There are more than 50 million people in the United States that are unpaid caregivers to a family member, friend or neighbor. This number continues to increase as people live longer.
Professional caregivers typically work for a home care agency. Those companies hire caregivers to help families or individuals with non-medical care services. The agency is hired to provide caregivers for respite care, temporary help, or full-time in-home care.
Why you should hire a caregiver
If you or a loved one needs help with activities of daily living because you cannot do them on your own, then hiring a caregiver would be beneficial. A professional caregiver can help with personal care services, homemaking tasks, companionship, and more.
If you are the primary caregiver for your spouse or aging parent who is sick or disabled, and you need some respite care, a professional caregiver would be a great solution.
It can be exhausting to take care of someone with Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia by yourself. So, you could hire a professional caregiver to take care of some of the household tasks like laundry and dishes to lighten the load.
Hiring a caregiver would be a great relief to a child who has an elderly parent living on their own in another state. They would probably feel so much better if someone was checking on them regularly. Companionship can be so good for the heart and mind.
As you can see, there are so many reasons why you should hire a caregiver.
Feel free to contact us with any questions at care@homewithhelp.net
You can also check out our services here…Home With Help®