In the recent years, most families have all the non-senior members working or busy with their daily activities. The spouses work from 9 to 5 while the kids may have school and extra-curriculars afterwards. This hardly leaves any time for them at home, which in turn makes it difficult, if not impossible to care for a senior member who needs it. And this is alarming since, many seniors have reported a rise in dementia and other problems related to aging. Moreover, even if some families have the time to care for their aging loved ones, they may not have the proper knowledge and skills required. A helpful solution for this that’s come up in the past few decades is to hire a carer. In home care services can care for your loved one with the professionalism of a nurse and the compassion of a relative. However, entrusting the life your loved one to a stranger can be hard and hence, here are some things you should consider when attempting to hire a senior carer:

Experience

The primary reason for hiring a carer at home instead of sending your loved one to a senior home is that you wish to be with them but don’t have enough time and/or experience to take care of them. Hence, this makes it important that the carer you higher is someone with both of those. You must make sure that the carer you hire has experience in all the tasks and chores that your loved one would require. This may include chores like bathing, grooming, medical and financial management and any other task you may specially require. You can interview the aide before hiring to confirm this.

Empathy

The second most important thing required from a senior carer is empathy. This means that the aide must treat the senior with respect and compassion instead of acting in a cold and cryptic fashion. They should be willing to, uplift the mood of your senior, listen to what they have to say, do fun things with them. This is important as without these, your loved one can feel quite unloved and abandoned, which in turn can cause depression.

Affordability

The third thing to look at when hiring a senior aide is affordability. Yes, caring for your family members is important, but it does not have to make a hole in your wallet.