How Does Home Health Care Support Seniors with End-stage COPD?
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, is a serious and progressive lung disease. That means it worsens gradually over time, causing increased symptoms and difficulty with daily life. There is also no cure for COPD. When seniors with COPD reach the later stages of the disease, they tend to face some very difficult challenges. COPD patients experience frequent exacerbations, reduced mobility, increased breathlessness, and other issues. Home health care services offer a lot of support for aging adults with COPD.
Home Health Care Morris Count NJ – How Does Home Health Care Support Seniors with End-stage COPD?
Coordination of Care
Navigating end-stage COPD often means that seniors are dealing with a variety of different healthcare providers, therapists, and other specialists. It can be overwhelming. Home health care can help them to keep all of this straight and coordinate care. They can help to make sure that treatment plans all work together for the best results possible.
Respiratory Therapy
Seniors with COPD often need respiratory therapy to breathe more comfortably and manage other symptoms. Respiratory therapy starts with assessing lung function and then using breathing exercises and other techniques to help COPD patients improve lung capacity and reduce breathing problems.
Medication Management
COPD patients often take a variety of different types of medications, including inhalers or nebulized medications, to control COPD symptoms and other health issues. Home health care providers can help seniors with COPD to take their medications properly and when they should. They can also stay alert for side effects and other issues that make medications less effective.
Oxygen Treatments
Oxygen therapies are another form of treatment that end-stage COPD patients often need. Oxygen therapy helps to maintain optimal oxygen levels in the blood, which is difficult with COPD. Home health care providers can help seniors with oxygen therapy, including setting up oxygen equipment properly, monitoring oxygen saturation levels, and offering other support.
Symptom Management
End-stage COPD can bring with it a variety of symptoms that are upsetting and exhausting. Chronic coughing, wheezing, fatigue, and chest pain are all possible symptoms seniors with end-stage COPD experience. Home care providers can help seniors with COPD to use techniques that help them to manage those symptoms effectively.
Assistance with ADLs
Daily life is more complicated for people with end-stage COPD. Taking care of light household tasks, meal preparation, laundry, and even personal care tasks are all much more demanding of energy and oxygen than people realize. Home care services can help seniors manage these tasks while conserving as much of their energy as they can.
Emotional Support
Life with end-stage COPD can be depressing and emotionally challenging for COPD patients and their family caregivers. Home health care providers understand how COPD affects patients on an emotional level and can offer the emotional support they need. They also offer companionship, which can be difficult for seniors with COPD to keep up with in other ways.
Home health care can address a variety of concerns that seniors with end-stage COPD face. Beyond managing symptoms and healthcare needs, they can also help seniors feel heard while they’re dealing with such a complicated illness.
If you or an aging loved one are considering hiring professional Home Health Care Services in Morris County NJ, please talk to the caring staff at Generations Home Health Care today.
Providing Home Care in Somerset, Essex, Union, Morris, and Hunterdon Counties. Call us today at (908) 290-0691 or (973) 241-4534.
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