Integrity Point of View Articles
How In-Home Care Can Help Decrease the Sting of Social Isolation
By: Integrity Home Care + Hospice
Supporting Mental and Emotional Health During the Holidays
As COVID remains on the rise within our communities, its accompanying social distancing recommendations continue to take an emotional toll on many of the already semi-isolated senior members of our society. Integrity Home Care is challenging community partners to support patients and families by helping them stay both safe at home and connected to family for the holiday season.
Why? An estimated three out of five Americans feel “lonely” and are at risk of social isolation, especially during the holidays. This year, that feeling will compound with COVID-19 restrictions. Of those who face loneliness, nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, which is believed to cause significant health risks including premature death, increased risk of dementia and stroke, and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide.
What Can Integrity Home Care Do to Help?
Integrity Home Care + Hospice helps provide additional mental and emotional support for all of our in-home care and hospice patients and their families through our team of licensed medical social workers. Depression, well-being, adjustment to changes, support system management, coping mechanisms, and counseling are all strong areas of intervention for our medical social workers. They routinely assess our in-home care and hospice patients for depression and suicide risk and are a great resource in situations of increased depression/isolation.
Specifically for our hospice patients, hospice team visits can be increased, social workers and chaplains can coordinate to provide extra visits for emotional and spiritual support, and volunteers can be offered to help with different activities of companionship, such as pet-assisted activities, church pastor communication, music therapy, and more.
Keeping Your Loved Ones Safe and Socially Connected
In situations where communication between family members may be sparse or strained, the team of medical social workers at Integrity Home Care can also serve as the bridge that reconnects family members, notifying the family when there is depression present in their loved one, encouraging more visits to boost morale, and even applying for grants (where appropriate) to help obtain tablets or other devices that would help facilitate more communication and connection within the family.
Simply put, this is an especially hard time to be on your own. With in-home care from Integrity Home Care + Hospice, you and your loved ones don’t have to go at it alone. Our highly skilled and compassionate clinicians are regularly updated with the CDC’s latest COVID-19 safety recommendations and provided with all PPE necessary to keep your loved ones safe during home visits.
Contact Integrity Home Care Today
If your senior loved one would benefit from in-home care services and the added comfort that companionship care can bring during periods of social isolation, please give one of our friendly offices a call at 855-442-4968 or send us an email!
