How Holistic Healthcare Has Influenced Modern Aged Care Solutions
The emergence of holistic healthcare has played a monumental role in the development of modern aged care solutions. Over the past few decades, traditional retirement villages have evolved to take the shape of communities, offering a range of alternative care solutions and services. These modern services utilise the power of community care, and are effectively designed to keep retirees in control of their own care, and have full authority over what their weekly routine may look like.
Holistic healthcare is a complicated construct that requires aged care providers to consider all aspects of healthy living, including routine appointments with medical professionals as well as factoring in nutrition, social stimulation, and physical activity.
Here are just some of the ways that aged care providers integrate holistic healthcare practices into modern aged care solutions.
Assistance with home maintenance and meal preparation
It’s common for some aged care solutions to incorporate at-home assistance and care options into their care packages. These at-home services can include assistance with grocery shopping and pet care, as well as assistance with general household tasks such as cooking and cleaning.
Whilst the benefits of meal and food preparation predominantly include ensuring that individuals receiving care are maintaining a nutritionally balanced diet, two other surprising benefits of at-home care are that time and energy saved on housework allows retirees to focus more of their attention towards their own personal enrichment.
Minimising their general life maintenance responsibilities allows retirees to actually enjoy the bulk of their golden years, and focus more on experiencing life rather than dealing with life upkeep.
The second surprising benefit is to do with community care itself. Having at-home assistance introduces retirees to the overall positive impacts that modern care packages can hold on seniors and their social lives.
Having regular interactions with your dedicated carers allows seniors to develop new and exciting relationships with people outside of their own friends and family. These relationships then help pave the way for greater social enrichment through other elements of their weekly care schedule. More on this below!
Introduction to and involvement in community support groups
The positive impacts of staying social throughout retirement are truly too vast to outline in this article alone. Not only does social enrichment ensure that retirees feel satisfied with their weekly routines, but staying connected has also been proven to greatly improve mental health and keep a myriad of mental health issues and conditions at bay, including dementia.
This is precisely why modern aged care providers equip themselves with an abundance of resources and support services outside of traditional at-home care and in-facility care packages. These support services can take the form of community support groups such as groups for recent widows, or even just general hobby groups like bowling or arts and crafts clubs that keep individuals feeling connected to their peers.
As the basis of community care is to ensure seniors stay active in their wider communities, these external support services and groups have become highly popular additions to the routines of seniors across the globe.
Embracing the power of physical activity
It goes without saying that an active senior is likely to lead a more positive and satisfying lifestyle over an individual who spends the majority of their personal time indoors. In fact, encouraging and providing opportunities for movement on a daily basis is considered foundational when caring for an elderly parent or relative at home.
Movement can be a lot of things, however, and doesn’t necessarily have to be sporting activities. Even an hour or so of outdoor gardening can provide the same benefits as a stroll through the park, or a game of backyard cricket with the grandkids. It’s common for aged care providers to offer a range of different physical activities like yoga or tai chi lessons, or a myriad of other opportunities for movement to ensure that there’s a little something for retirees from all walks of life.
A growing focus on community enrichment
Alongside encouraging retirees to participate in relevant community support groups and shared activities with their peers, modern aged care solutions also place great importance in social enrichment activities as well, organising outings for senior citizens that are in alignment with their own personal interests.
These outings can include trips to museums, art galleries, and special events like high teas, and musical entertainment or one-off workshops and classes that they can participate in with their wider family or even their fellow peers as well. Alongside providing genuine enrichment, novel events and outings like these can also help keep a retiree’s weekly routine feeling fresh, and minimise feelings of monotony.
It’s worth noting that the ideal care solution tends to differ depending on the unique needs of the individual seeking care. For this reason, it’s imperative that you consult with your local and trusted aged care provider and involve the individual receiving care in the development of their own care package.
