What Happens When Your Senior Can’t Leave Her Home?
When your elderly family member can’t leave her home, that means that a lot of her needs now have to be met in other ways.
This can test your creativity unless you’re finding ways to ensure that you’re getting access for her to services that can make life easier, safer, and healthier. Having help with that task is possible and it can ensure that you really do find all of the tools your senior needs.
Care Coordination in Greenwood IN: Can’t Leave Her Home
This Is Usually Called Being “Homebound”
If your elderly family member is injured or seriously ill, she may not be able to leave her home. This is typically called being homebound. As defined by Medicare, that means your elderly family member is unable to leave her home other than for situations such as seeking medical treatment or occasionally going elsewhere, like to church.
What Services Does Your Senior Need?
In order to be safe, healthy, and happy at home your elderly family member might need assistance from several different services. If she’s been injured, your senior may need physical therapy or additional home nursing services. After an illness like a stroke, your senior may need occupational therapy, speech therapy, and so much more. It’s important to talk to your senior’s medical team and determine what would most help her.
How Do You Access These Services?
Once you understand what services your elderly family member needs, you have to figure out how to actually set them up. This process can get started in the hospital or by your senior’s doctor, but it can still be confusing and exhausting for you to navigate. Finding outside help with these concerns can help you to access exactly the services that your elderly family member most needs.
Your Senior May Need Medical Equipment, Too
Something else that might be confusing for both you and you’re senior is that she might need medical equipment in order to deal with her new circumstances. Safety equipment in the bathroom, a wheelchair, or a hospital bed may all give your senior the ability to safely remain at home while she heals. Finding this equipment isn’t always easy when you haven’t had to do so before.
One of the easiest ways to determine what services will help your senior and you the most, while she is homebound, is to work with care management professionals. They have experience in matching needs with the right services and they can eliminate a lot of confusion and guesswork.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering Care Coordination in Greenwood, IN, please call the caring staff at Home Services Unlimited. Serving Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: 317-471-0775
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where shewasthe In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
Etelka was honored as a “Health Care Hero” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The issue can be read online here:
http://mags.ibj.com/activemagazine/welcome/html/ibjhch.html.
After clicking on the link, then click on the image of the issue’s front page. After that, you can browse through the issue or click in a box near the top of your internet browser to adjust the page to 17, which is where Etelka’s article appears.
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