Sunday, June 5, 2011

Keeping an Eye On the Little Things

I would like to stress that that even a "continuing care" facility does not provide "complete" care for your aging mother or father. Facility staff will be far too busy to tend to many of the little things, so please do not assume these will be done for you. Many of these smaller comforts will be left up to you to manage. In addition to the multiple tasks you are already juggling, here a few additional responsibilities that you may wish to consider:

Doing laundry: Yes, continuing care facilities do offer laundry service, but you may wish to launder fine washables yourself. This way you can avoid any possible accidents where a sweater, for example, might get accidentally tossed in a dryer and shrink. When you do such laundry yourself at home, you can ensure that clothing can be hung dry instead.

Fluffing pillows: Is Mom or Dad's bed pillow looking a little "used"? Check on this during your next visit and "fluff up" that pillow for increased comfort.

Cleaning out hairbrushes and/or razors: Excessive hair can build up in either and make the brush or razor unusable. Take a few minutes to pull out or brush out the hair. While doing this, you can also check the razor blades and batteries (if this is a cordless model of shaver) to make sure neither needs to be replaced.

Dusting: My family had supplied my father with a small bookshelf for his room. We thought that with Dad being a former English professor, the bookshelf would provide some familiarity. With the facility care staff being too busy to do so, I regularly dusted this bookshelf. On a related note, we also hired a handyman to install small wheels on the base of this bookshelf; by doing so, the shelf (even when fully loaded) could be easily rolled away to be swept behind.

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