What is daily care for the elderly?

To put it bluntly, daily care for the elderly is full-scenario care and support centered on the three dimensions of the elderly's physiological state, psychological needs, and social functions. All the trivial things that can help the elderly maintain a comfortable and dignified living condition and retain the ability to live independently as much as possible are included in it.

Don't think that this is an unskilled job of "waiting for people". I have worked in a community nursing home for almost 7 years, and I have seen too many family members who initially thought that they had fulfilled their responsibilities by "feeding and clothing the elderly, giving medicines on time and not falling down". As a result, the elderly were bored at home every day and did not talk, and even their appetites dropped faster and faster, so they came to us in a panic for help.

The 78-year-old Grandpa Li who just took over our station last month is a typical example. After falling once in the shower at home, his left leg became weak. His son hired a live-in aunt for him, who took care of three meals a day, scrubbed himself, and prescribed antihypertensive medicine at designated times. He was not allowed to leave the house. As a result, within three months, Grandpa Li did not even want to touch the aviation model he had touched for decades, and would hide in the bedroom when relatives came to visit. When we came to do a nursing assessment, we found that on his bedside table was a certificate from a city chess competition he went to with his chess friends several years ago. After that, we adjusted the nursing plan: in addition to routine blood pressure monitoring and assisting him with lower limb rehabilitation training every day, we also specially left 20 I would take him to the chess club to play two games with the old guys every Friday. Now he can walk to the gate of the community with a walker to pick up the express delivery. Last week, he actively signed up to go to the wetland park in the suburbs with the old guys from the chess club.

There are actually different opinions on the boundaries of daily care in the industry. Some practitioners believe that the physiological safety of the elderly is the first priority. After all, problems such as osteoporosis and degeneration of swallowing function are real. Once they fall or choke, they are life-threatening events. There is no need to spend too much energy on such dispensable things as "playing with you" and "having fun"； But other front-line caregivers who spend time among the elderly feel that if they treat the elderly as "disabled patients" every day and prevent them from doing things that they have loved their whole lives, no matter how standard their physical parameters are and their spirits are broken, it is not considered good care.

In fact, to put it bluntly, daily care for the elderly is like maintaining an old house that has been lived in for decades. You don’t just have to repair any leaks or paint where the walls have fallen off. You have to remember that this house contains the owner’s lifelong habits and thoughts. When cleaning the table, don’t disturb the old photos on the bedside table. While giving medicine, he casually mentioned that his grandson won the first place in the sprint at the last sports meeting. When helping him to bask in the sun on the balcony in winter, he remembered to adjust the Peking Opera radio that he had listened to for half his life to the corresponding frequency. These trivial things that are not written in the standardized nursing manual are the most shocking core of daily care.