Assisted living resident sitting with a nurse

Careers Form

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Is Long-Term Care Necessary for Your Loved One?

The phrase “long-term care” can be used to describe a variety of services, including simple assistance for older adults or more intensive services for those with a chronic illness, injury or disability who cannot care for themselves.  

For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on the former: Assisted Living for older adults.

Your parent or aging loved one may still be the independent-minded person you’ve long admired. But as we age, it’s common to lose the ability to manage necessary daily tasks. As the signs of lost skills increase, living at home can become difficult or even unsafe.

How to Know Whether Your Loved One Needs Assisted Living

The fact is, family or close friends are often the first to sense the changing needs of an aging adult. Warning signs are varied and might include:

  • Unusually disheveled appearance
  • Messier-than-usual house
  • Empty refrigerator and pantry
  • Weight loss

For extra help, a physician or geriatric health care professional can assess your loved one’s ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs), and help determine whether long-term care is in their best interest.

Activities of daily living commonly include:

  • Bathing and hygiene 
  • Dressing
  • Preparing and eating nutritious meals
  • Toileting
  • Medication management

There are additional activities to consider as well, like managing money, at-home mobility and out-of-home transportation, doing light housework, and shopping for groceries and other necessities.  All these tasks make up the foundation for more independence and a rewarding quality of life.

nurse helping senior woman off the couch

What Are the Next Steps Toward Assisted Living?

It’s common for a family member to help out an elderly loved one so they can remain in their home as long as possible. And yet, however well intentioned, performing long-term care services without training or qualification can lead to otherwise-avoidable frustrations and an oppressing feeling of burnout. This isn’t surprising. In most care situations, the person in need of care takes precedence. Of course, your health and happiness matter too. Rest assured, you have good options.

Assisted Living in the Roanoke Valley Area

If you have an aging loved one struggling to manage any of the ADLs listed above, The Glebe can help. Our Assisted Living services include around-the-clock care and kindness, provided by a team of health care professionals.  

Your loved one will live in a beautiful setting, surrounded by homelike comforts and new opportunities to enjoy each day. You will benefit too. With The Glebe’s supportive lifestyle, you can unburden yourself from care responsibilities and get back to being a loving family member. It’s a decision the whole family will feel good about.

To learn more about how The Glebe can serve you and your loved one, contact us today.