Do you or someone you know need help with day-to-day tasks because of an illness or disability? Home care health services can help you with that. Depending on what you need, you can have health care services from the comfort of your own home.
What Is Home Health Care?
There is a limitless range of health services that you can receive at home. This can range from medical services like lab tests to nursing care. Home care can include helping with daily tasks like washing and dressing, cleaning the house once a week, or any other personal care tasks. This type of health care method has become a common and economical alternative to staying in the hospital, which is good for those who don’t like the hospital environment and are more comfortable staying in familiar surroundings.
To help you determine what kind of care you might need at home, you’ll need to speak with your doctor about your care plan.
Types of Home Health Care Services
Doctor Care
If needed, your doctor might visit your home to help you diagnose or treat any illness. They can also help you review and determine what kind of home health care you need.
Pharmaceutical Service
Medicine or even medical equipment can be delivered to your home. You’ll be instructed on how to take your medicines and use the equipment given to you. This can include infusion therapy, parenteral and enteral nutrition therapy, or injectable drug therapy.
Laboratory and X-ray Imaging
Lab tests like blood and urine tests can be done in the comfort of your home, along with X-rays that can be done through portable machines.
Nursing Care
This is one of the most common forms of at-home health care services where a registered nurse can set up a care plan with the advice of a doctor. Nursing care usually includes monitoring general health, pain control, and other health support.
Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapy
Patients who need to relearn how to perform daily tasks or improve their speech can receive therapy sessions from home. For physical therapists, a care plan is put together to help patients regain strength or mobility in their muscles or joints.
On the other hand, occupational therapists help people relearn tasks like eating, bathing, etc. A speech therapist can help people with speech impediments communicate clearly.
Medical Social Services
Social workers provide different services to patients, including counseling and finding resources to help the patient recover. At times, they also become the patient’s case manager.
Companionship
Some patients might live alone and not have any immediate or nearby family members to care for them. In this case, a companion may be provided to help supervise and provide comfort to patients.
Nutritional Support
If you need help with your dietary plan, a dietitian can visit you at home and give you a dietary assessment that supports your care plan.
Transportation
Some companies help provide patients transportation to and from the hospital for treatment or physical exams.
Homemaker Care
While the patient is being cared for at home, a homemaker can help maintain the household by doing chores, laundry, groceries, and other housekeeping tasks.
Volunteer Care
Volunteers from community organization can also help patients by being their companion. This usually involves helping with personal care tasks, providing transportation, emotional support, or helping with any necessary paperwork.
Services You Can’t Get at Home
While there are many services that you can get from home, there are still some services that you still need to get at the hospital. These services often involve processes used to diagnose major issues in your organs and bones, find any internal bleeding, or monitor cancer.
While portable X-rays are a good way to find out what’s happening in your body from home, there are no portable machines used for computed tomography or CT scans or magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs. While they’re all used to capture images within your body, CT scans and MRIs give you more detailed information than X-rays and help doctors diagnose you easily.
You might still need to visit a hospital depending on what kind of medical attention you might need or if it’s an emergency. But for the most part, you can get the treatment and care you need at home whenever you need it. If you find yourself needing at-home health care, speak with your doctor to help you draft an effective care plan and get back up on your feet.
