If your spouse has a chronic medical condition, such as diabetes, and is losing their vision, they may need more supervision and help. When vision loss strikes in the senior years, it can be difficult to learn coping mechanisms, and that can cause a decreased quality of life for your spouse and worry for you as a caregiver. Here are some types of senior care that might benefit your spouse when they have a chronic health problem that leads to vision loss.
Home Health Care
Home care can be beneficial to your spouse and you by having someone in the home to care for your spouse when you're not there. This keeps your spouse safer if they can't see well enough to be safe walking alone or to feed themselves.
A home health care service also helps with giving medications when your spouse may not be able to see bottles or pills very well, and they can even help with grooming and dressing so your spouse feels clean and comfortable.
Assisted Living
When your spouse has other medical conditions that need frequent care, such as diabetes or COPD, assisted living might be a better solution so their medical needs are taken care of and so they have help available 24 hours a day. Assisted living gives your spouse some privacy if wanted so it's more like living alone but with help when you want it.
The facility supplies daily meals and assists with activities of daily life so your spouse can stay as active as possible without leaving all the work to you and compromising your health.
Nursing Home
One of the main concerns with blindness or poor vision in an elderly person is a fall that might break a hip. A broken hip can start a chain reaction of health problems for someone who is frail or who has other medical conditions. There may be a time when placing your spouse in a nursing home is the best choice so they have near-constant supervision.
They'll have help walking, and they can be around other people for a social life. A loss of sight can shut part of the world off for your spouse, and if they also have cognition problems, daily life could become scary and stressful. Being in the care of a senior care facility means your spouse will be supervised and a plan of care will be established and followed so your spouse has the best quality of life possible given their medical problems and loss of vision.
Your spouse can help you choose the senior care facility that's best for them if they're able to help. You may start with home care and progress to a nursing home as your spouse's medical conditions progress. Senior care gives your spouse the best life while also relieving some of the caregiving duties from you.
No matter what type of senior care you choose, you'll still be an important part of your spouse's care team, but you'll have help and support so you don't have to do everything alone.
Older adults sometimes see nursing care as an all-or-nothing scenario. They assume they are either at home living independently, or they are in a nursing home where everything is done for them. This is not really the case, however. There are plenty of in-between options for older adults who need some care, but who may not need full nursing assistance yet. Assisted living centers allow this flexibility. Your older loved one can simply have their meals provided for them, or they can have around-the-clock care — or somewhere in-between. We invite you to explore the content provided to learn more.