How Home Care Services Can Enhance An Elderly Adult’s Mental Health 

Conversations about aging often focus on physical health. Yet, that’s only one part of the equation. Mental health is incredibly important too, especially as a person’s mental health has many impacts on their physical health.

Thankfully, many services can support both physical and mental health, helping to improve a senior’s overall wellbeing.

Today, we’re interested in how home care services perform these roles.

What Are Home Care Services?

Let’s begin with a definition. Home care services are services provided by professionals within a person’s own home. They focus on assistance with the tasks of living, including dressing, meal preparation, and bathing. There’s also a companionship aspect to the service, where the aide may spend time talking to the senior and simply keeping them company.

Such support is often provided by personal care assistance, home health aids, or professional caregivers.

The service differs somewhat from home health care services, as those focus on health-related needs and are typically offered by skilled medical professionals. Home health services are often prescribed by a doctor for specific health needs and may be covered by insurance.

Why Use Home Care Services?

As people age, their ability to care for themselves changes. They may find certain tasks increasingly difficult, like cooking for themselves, driving, bathing, or getting dressed.

Home care services can help fill the gaps. They provide assistance in areas the senior struggles with, allowing them to remain safe and functional in their own home.

Effectively, home care services allow seniors to live at home on their own for much longer than they could otherwise.

The services are powerful for family members too, as they reduce stress and provide reassurance that the senior is safe and well looked after. Some family caregivers may also use home care services as a form of respite while supporting a loved one.

Home care services may initially be unappealing to seniors who prefer to remain independent as long as possible. Yet, these services actually keep seniors at home longer. Otherwise, there’s a risk that the senior needs to enter a facility because they need help in one specific area, like bathing or meal prep.

Home Care Services and Mental Health

The WHO reviewed the support needs of older people in its International Classification, Disability, and Health Framework (ICF). In doing so, they identified activities and services that can promote improved physical and psychological health for seniors.

Mobility, self-care, and domestic life were the three main identified areas.

These all play crucial roles in senior health, helping to promote independence and wellbeing. Here are how these three services can contribute meaningfully to the mental health of seniors aging at home.

Social Connection is Crucial

Engaging with others is essential for our mental health. It’s also something we often overlook, perhaps because it’s such a common part of our lives.

In fact, the way that social connection promotes health remains crucial throughout our lives. It’s why we form so many friendships and why they matter so much to us.

Some theories even suggest that prolonged isolation could be as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes per day and can have dramatic physical health impacts.

Why This Matters For Seniors

Aging often disrupts current social connections, as seniors are no longer working a regular job. This means they lose the stable social connections found from going to work every day.

At the same time, some seniors end up being less active and less engaged in life. This is partly because they are no longer able to participate in some of the activities of their youth and haven’t found new ones to replace them.

Some seniors find their health takes a knock. Suddenly it’s more difficult, if not impossible, to travel regularly and visit friends. Even leaving the home can become an ordeal, making the senior reliant on visitors who may or may not come.

Plus, seniors often find themselves losing friends through illness and death.

No longer having a job, being less physically capable, and losing friends can all take a toll on a senior’s social connections. It’s not surprising, then, that some seniors end up very lonely, with few tools to resolve the situation.

How Home Care Services Can Help

Because seniors are often physically isolated, visits from friends, family, and home care services can have a huge impact.

Professional home care services are particularly interesting here, as many have companion-related programs, where the goal is to simply provide companionship, rather than helping with any practical needs.

Some volunteer organizations offer similar services too, which may mean that seniors and caregivers don’t need to pay.

Possible activities include sharing tea and a cake together, having a game of cards, or even going out to visit a local park or garden (if the senior is mobile enough).

When such in-person services aren’t possible or realistic, some mental health home care services offer phone calls to check in on seniors.

Even a simple phone call can make a huge difference to someone who lives alone.

Services don’t need to be companionship-related to be powerful. For example, someone coming every couple of days to help with housework still provides the senior with a chance for social interaction. They may even form friendships if the same person visits regularly to provide support.

Cleaning Services Help with Mood

Cleaning isn’t just a task to make the house look nice. It’s also highly relevant for physical and mental health.

In particular, recent medical research suggests a link between cognitive conditions involving memory loss and environmental toxins. It was found that constant exposure to metals, biotoxins, bacteria, and molds that may increase the risk of the onset of neurodegenerative disease.

A dirty house can affect physical health in other ways too, like increasing the risk of breathing problems, allergies, and infections.

There’s also a mental health side of things.

Most of us feel more settled emotionally when the home is clean and things have been put away. This is one reason why minimalism has become such a popular movement.

This doesn’t mean that a house needs to be spotless to be healthy, not at all. The ideal amount of cleanliness and organization varies from person to person. 

However, keeping the environment clean and tidy is a powerful aspect of physical and mental health.

The Role of Cleaning Services

Professional home cleaning services can help, offering a way to keep the senior’s home clean, even when they can’t do so themselves. This is powerful, helping to promote their physical and mental health.

Cleaning services are helpful for seniors with cognitive challenges too. Seniors in this position may not remember to clean regularly and mightn’t recognize that the house needs cleaning. Having someone come in to do this for them can make the world of difference.

We’re not just talking about small weekly cleans either.

Sometimes having a regular and professional deep cleaning of the home can be powerful for improving the space, improving mental health, and lowering disease risk considerably.

Nutrition and Health

Then there’s nutrition.

It’s no secret that food impacts physical health. But, it doesn’t stop there. Food is just as vital for mental health. Eating well and decreasing junk food intake can even decrease the risk of depression and promote mental health in other ways.

Where Seniors Can Struggle

While we all know the importance of eating well, doing so isn’t always easy. It can become more difficult with age too.

There are multiple reasons for this, including:

• Loss of appetite, which makes seniors less willing to eat, even when they need the protein and nutrients.
• Difficulty chewing or swallowing, perhaps due to the loss of teeth or a health condition.
• Physical challenges that make it difficult to shop for food, to prep meals, or to cook.
• Depression or low mood, which can make all aspects of planning, preparing, and eating food more difficult.
• Decreased energy and stamina.

Ways to Improve Senior Nutrition

Improving senior nutrition often means finding alternatives to them cooking meals independently.

Some home care services do this by delivering freshly prepared healthy meals can contribute greatly to a senior’s mental health. Meal delivery services often serve the dual purpose of supplying no-fuss, nutrient rich, and enjoyable foods to people in their homes, and checking on the welfare of the occupant while doing so.

Final Thoughts

When we talk about aging in place, we often highlight medical and personal services, ones that help seniors with tasks like going to the bathroom, changing dressings, and medication management.

Sometimes, though, we forget the value of simple home care services – including those that help with home cleaning, companionship, and healthy food. These areas are all critical to physical and mental health for seniors. They may even make the difference between a senior being able to stay at home and needing to leave.