Five Possible Reasons Your Senior Is More Isolated
It can be so difficult to see your elderly family member pulling away from events and people that she’s always enjoyed in the past. Understanding what might be contributing to her withdrawal and isolation can help you to find solutions for her.
Senior Care in Greenwood IN: Reasons Your Senior Is More Isolated
She’s Dealing with Physical Challenges
Physical challenges, especially ones that affect your senior’s existing health issues, are difficult for your senior to cope with on multiple levels. From a social standpoint, health issues can be embarrassing or simply difficult to manage, which can make being around other people more challenging. It might feel easier for your senior to just stay home or to not have anyone over.
Transportation Is a Problem
When your elderly family member can’t drive any longer, that causes difficulties in other areas of her life. Everything becomes a little more challenging, especially social engagements. In the past, your elderly family member might have met up with or encountered people she knows while running errands. If she’s not getting out much, this limits her engagement with others.
Communicating with Others Is More Difficult
For a variety of reasons, communication can be more difficult now, too. Your elderly family member may be having trouble with her hearing or her sight, which can cause her to feel as if communication is more difficult. She may also be experiencing problems with her memory or in expressing her thoughts. Those difficulties can cause her to withdraw.
She’s Experiencing Cognitive Difficulties
Cognitive changes, whether they’re from dementia or from another cause, can be another reason your elderly family member is a little more withdrawn. She may not even know for certain what her brain is doing, but the feeling that her brain is functioning differently than she’s used to can cause her to self-isolate.
Her Mental Health Is Changing
Isolation can lead to depression and anxiety, but anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues can also feed into isolation. Your senior’s mental health is a critical part of her ability and desire to spend time around other people. If she’s not feeling capable of being around other people on an emotional level, that can cause her to avoid people for longer than she expects to do so.
Finding a way to manage social isolation is crucial. In-home care providers can offer hands-on assistance to your elderly family member while also offering companionship that she may find invaluable. Care management professionals can help you to determine if other solutions might also be helpful.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering Senior Care 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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