How Can Home Care Help with Activities of Daily Living?
For many adults with developmental disabilities, activities of daily living are incredibly difficult to manage alone. Having some experienced help every day can be the key to being able to live independently.
Getting Familiar with ADL
Activities of daily living, sometimes abbreviated as ADL, are activities that your family member needs to do every day as a part of living life. These activities include bathing, grooming, and getting dressed. Other activities of daily living, like meal preparation and running errands, might also be on the list. Depending on your family member’s health and capabilities, help using the restroom and getting into and out of bed may also be essential.
Determine Where Help Is Necessary
Your family member may have assistance needs with some of these ADLs and not others. It’s a good idea to sit down together and work out where help is needed and wanted. From there you can work out the best plan. You might find it helpful to pull in input from other specialists who help your family member, such as occupational or physical therapists as well as her doctor. These insights can help tremendously.
Timing Can Be Important to Consider
At different times of the day, your family member may need more help. For instance, getting out of bed, going through her morning routine, and getting dressed may be difficult for your family member. Once she’s ready for the day, though, she may find it much easier to accomplish everything that she needs to do during the day. For other adults with developmental disabilities, help all day may be more appropriate.
It’s about What Works for Your Family Member
Ultimately, when you bring home care services providers into the equation it’s about doing whatever it is that helps your family member the most. In fact, the routine that you set up now with home care services may meet her needs now and need modification later. Down the road a bit, those needs can change significantly and that’s when you and your family member can work with her entire team to find the right balance again.
Adults with developmental disabilities can live a safe and happy life in their own homes, but it might take having a little bit of help as well. Home care services providers are familiar with the kinds of help that your family member needs and they can help with accommodations that make life easier.
