Why Adult Day Care is Important

Adult day care services benefit seniors and their family caretakers

If you have a senior parent or loved one with dementia, you know how challenging providing adequate care can be. Even if their disease is not yet severe, the changing needs of seniors with memory illnesses are hard to keep up with. You may be caring for a senior parent, raising a family, focusing on a career, and trying to maintain your own health. If you feel overwhelmed, you are not alone.

Adult day care has become a solution for many family caregivers seeking senior care assistance. While adult day care offers interim care for family members, this care option also benefits seniors. The physical activity, social stimulation, and emotional connections help seniors with dementia connect to the world around them, which often feels like a frightening or unfamiliar place.

What is Adult Day Care?

Typically, adult day care refers to nonresidential senior homes or community centers that are focused on the needs of elderly adults. These care centers are open during regular business hours, accommodating the busy schedules of adult children who may be caring for an aging parent.

Adult day care relieves primary caregivers while ensuring that senior loved ones are still receiving proper attention and assistance in a friendly, safe, and nurturing environment.

Benefits for Seniors

Family caregivers, especially adult children, often feel guilty placing their senior mom or dad in an adult day care facility. The truth is that the mental and social benefits a care facility can bring are far more than in-home care alone. Adult care programs give seniors an opportunity to socialize, resulting in increased alertness and activity.

Professional care providers at specialized adult day care facilities are trained to meet the unique needs of seniors with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other memory illnesses. This means that they are equipped with the proper tools to monitor and manage memory illness symptoms. These caregivers can monitor your loved one’s mental health and know when to recommend more advanced care.

Adult day care facilities offer services such as assistance with eating, exercise programs, crafts, bus trips, holiday parties, and transportation help. Adding activities to a senior’s schedule provides more structure, giving them things to anticipate and look forward to.

Benefits for Family Members

Caring for a loved one with dementia is mentally and emotionally demanding, frequently requiring numerous hours each day on top of professional and family obligations. Adult day care services give primary caregivers much-needed assistance. Senior loved ones are still receiving high-quality care in a compassionate and attentive environment.

Making sure to care for yourself is essential to helping others. If you are feeling stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed, your loved one’s care will suffer. If you are caring for an aging parent, utilizing adult care can have a significant impact on your personal relationship. Instead of seeing one another as caregiver and patient, you can focus on reconnecting as child and parent.

Having a parent that suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is a difficult situation and you must make sure you care for your emotional and mental well-being as well as your loved one’s.

Making Adult Day Care Work for Your Family

For grown children working full-time jobs, raising families, and caring for aging parents, schedule flexibility is everything. Most adult day care centers offer full-day and short day programs that allow seniors to be active when it works best for them. This gives seniors an increased sense of independence, helping them feel more confident.

As your loved one’s dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other memory illness progresses, their care needs will become more specialized. Moving from home into a nursing facility can be a shocking and stressful event for seniors, especially those with dementia who prefer familiar surroundings. Utilizing an adult day care facility while your loved one is still lucid creates a transition phase from home to a full-time dementia care facility.

Adult day care programs can assist family members in finding the right resident care facility when the time comes. Until then, the benefits of day care for you and your senior loved one are too great to be ignored. Consider working these services into your mom or dad’s dementia care plan for a better quality of life for you both.

To learn more about adult day care in Wichita, KS, please call ComfortCare Homes of Wichita at (316) 685-3322.

ComfortCare Homes of Wichita, KS provides memory care services to the following cities and neighborhoods: Wichita, Derby, Augusta, El Dorado, Newton, Hutchinson, Pretty Prairie, Kingman, Norwich, Conway Springs, Belle Plaine, and the surrounding areas of Kansas.

Resources:
What is Adult Day Care?
Benefits of Adult Day Care