How Home Care Service in the Bay Area Helps Ease the Burden of Neurodegenerative Disease

When someone in your family begins to exhibit signs of progressive disease, it can be a very difficult situation to navigate. Parents and loved ones who have been so self-reliant throughout the course of your life begin to experience cognition and memory issues that grow in severity. It reaches the point where they can no longer perform the activities of daily living that they used to find so simple. This often begins with something as seemingly unimportant as forgetting their medication or having intense mood swings without explanation.

However, once these symptoms begin to appear more frequently, it's time to consider some form of in-home support for your loved one. By investing in the services of healthcare staffing in the Bay Area, you can rest more easily knowing that your father, mother, or other loved one is being taken care of when you aren't available.

Here's how both medical and non-medical staffing in the Bay Area can help you navigate the tribulations of someone suffering from neurodegenerative disease.

Cognitive Decline and Home Care Services in the Bay Area

There are numerous diseases out there that begin to take hold of our mental abilities as we age. From Dimensia and Parkinson's disease, there are numerous different maladies that can impact our cognition and memory and reduce a loved one's ability to live on their own.

Alzheimer's Care in the Bay Area

AD is one of the most well-known diseases that a senior is likely to suffer from. While Alzheimer Syndrome can present itself in any older person, there are some risk factors that have been identified as creating a greater chance for seniors with those risks to develop the disease.

Some of the hallmark signs of this neurodegenerative disease include being increasingly forgetful, experiencing major mood swings, and having difficulty accomplishing simple, routine, or everyday tasks. In some cases, this can start to occur in younger adults in a branch of the disease known as early-onset Alzheimer’s Syndrome.

With this in mind, it is important to find effective ways to help patients so they can live healthy lives while also keeping their dignity. There are many options for how a family can choose to go about finding the right caregiving option that works with their elderly loved one’s unique needs.

Cognitive Decline

Although AD is often thought to be the most common of all neurodegenerative diseases, it's certainly not the only one. Parkinson's disease, for example, affects nearly 10 million people worldwide. As patients progress through the stages of this disease, their symptoms tend to worsen over time. Many of the cognitive symptoms are similar between Parkinson’s and AD, although the former often also present with a hallmark tremor and rigid muscle movement that makes diagnosis somewhat easier.

While Parkinson's disease is not curable, there are treatments that allow patients to maintain their quality of life. Between the use of L-DOPA, other medications, and support staff, patients with Parkinson’s can often go on living long happy lives. The important thing is to start providing the added support before things begin to spiral out of control.

Medical professionals usually recommend home care services for people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases because the alternative can be devastating. If a loved one lives far away and you can't provide round-the-clock support, then putting them under the close watch of in-home support staff is an ideal option.

Dementia is another prevalent cognitive issue that begins to set in as people age. It's often linked to Parkinson's disease. In some cases, dementia can occur seemingly out of the blue. Unfortunately, there is still lots of speculation and little understanding of the precise causes.

There are varying kinds of home care services in the Bay Area to help patients suffering from AD, dementia, or Parkinson’s. If you're struggling with this disease yourself, then it may be time to consider professional support for both you and your loved one. For example, an elderly person who is diagnosed with dementia may begin acting out in a way that puts their family in danger. By having a professional support provider close by, the individual in question can still receive help and the family can receive much-needed rest.

Caring for a loved one who has dementia is stressful and there are cases where it becomes overwhelming even for family members. Again, if you can't provide assistance for yourself around the clock, then having assistance from trained medical professionals is important. While some more advanced cases may require the assistance of round-the-clock service, other patients may only need support during daytime hours or when going to run errands.

It's an unfortunate side effect of the disease, but people with neurodegenerative diseases can sometimes be difficult to assist. In-home support agencies can help mitigate that burden by providing proper training and support staff to ensure that you or your loved one is cared for in a dignified manner.

One of the major challenges facing families who have a loved one with a neurodegenerative disease is second-guessing themselves when it comes to making difficult decisions about the loved one's health and assistance. While this can seem like an impossible situation, having the guidance of professionals who have seen this situation play out countless times is a breath of fresh air. Although it's not pleasant to make these decisions, even the insights from non-medical staffing can be helpful for making a more informed decision about the next steps.

However, before you make any major decisions, it is always wise to speak with your own or a loved one’s doctor to ensure that is the best course of action and to ensure you have all options presented to you.