For many families, having their loved ones move to a nursing home for caregiving is a last resort. Even when at-home caregiving and adult foster care are no longer practical or financially the best places and a nursing home may be the only remaining choice, some families will still resist. However, there's a wide array of reasons it can be a good decision.
Here are three benefits from nursing home living that should be part of your family's considerations about senior caregiving. Our family has experienced each of them.
The Benefits of Community Living
When your loved one is receiving at-home care, it may satisfy the thought that no one will provide care like family members can. On the other hand, the demands of caregiving may also wear away the resilience of family members in ways that weren't considered when the at-home care decision was made.
One of the benefits of nursing home living is the availability of 24-7 care from folks who are trained, equipped, and tempered to provide those services. They come to work (at least theoretically) comparatively refreshed, ready and willing to do their eight-hour shift well. The at-home caregiver has already been on duty for eight hours and still has 16 more to go.
Community living also puts your loved one in a dramatically different scenario. At home they're the center of a very small not-well-and-needing-care universe that's not always healthy for them or their caregivers. Life at home has a limited perspective. With nursing home living, they're not the center of attention all of the time.
At a nursing home, they have the opportunity to share life with peers who have similar ailments and limited capabilities, but also the same sorts of memories. They have similar sorts of recollections about life. They have the chance to get beyond their limitations, together, and see life from a shared point of view that has more vitality, even though it’s admittedly less than in past years.
The Benefits of a More Active Life
At-home care and adult foster care facilities, too, will probably not give the range of activities that nursing homes provide. On-site worship services, exercise classes, craft classes, bingo, table games and many other forms of social and recreational activities are routine in nursing homes. Having meals in community can provide conversational opportunities that are simply not possible at home. What a nursing home offers can be especially stimulating, in particular when compared to spending whole days in front of the television at home or in an adult foster care facility.
Even when the issues related to dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease severely impact behavior and cognitive capabilities, there may still be times every day when loved ones are lucid and have more normal states of mind. Those times can allow more interaction with staff, other residents, and family who are visiting. It can be reassuring and encouraging for family members to witness and receive reports of these sorts of social interactions.
The Benefits for Individual and Family Life
A common theme for family’s providing at-home caregiving is the loss of life. That is, not death in the traditional sense, but death in terms of the caregiver’s loss of normal living. One woman told me that her “normal life vaporized when her life as a home caregiver began.”
Work, hobbies, recreation, and socializing as they have known it are often wiped away from the life of people who are caregivers at home. Going to church and casual grocery shopping become rushed or just distant memories. Life has significantly less breadth and depth. As hard as they try to keep up with the requirements of 24/7 caregiving, and still have a life, it’s really not possible anymore.
One professional caregiver, who is a pastor and whose family cared for his mother for 17 years, told me, “We often bury the caregiver before the patient.” That may seem boldly harsh, but caregiving can actually sap away life. That’s reality for some families.
The bad press and bad memories generated over several decades about nursing homes lingers today long after major transformations have occurred across the country. Many, if not most, nursing homes are now owned and run by corporations that know the value of good service and a good reputation. In addition, laws and regulations have strengthened the monitoring of nursing homes. So, don’t let that public relations residue get in the way of your own searching and evaluation. Be open, especially, to the endorsing experiences of friends and family.
A Step-Back Perspective
The benefits of caregiving by a nursing home staff can mean the potential return to a comparatively normal life for you and other family members. It’s not selfish. It may be a blessing may to have a lot less stress and the capability of sharing all of your loved one’s lives from a healthier point of view. And, that includes your family member who resides in a nursing home. It does not mean you love them any less.
You may discover that you appreciate them even more. When your family evaluates the comparative benefits of at-home caregiving with what an adult foster home provides, and the benefits of nursing home care, be cautious that decision-making isn’t clouded by misperceived notions about what other people (and you) have about nursing homes.
Ask around, almost everyone you may talk to can share family experiences regarding at home caregiving and the toll it takes. Investigate. Listen. Evaluate. The reflections you get may be a comfort during your time of decision-making. There are, perhaps, more benefits from nursing home care than you’ve ever thought about. Nursing home living may represent the final phase of life, but it need not be a lesser one than living our last days at home.
Further Reading:
Caregiving: Dealing Successfully With Family Issues
Caregiving: Giving Care to Senior Caregivers
