When most people think about holistic health care, they think about alternative treatments such as massage, acupuncture, and naturopathy. But holistic care can encompass more than just alternative therapies. This care is a philosophy of providing the best possible treatment in every aspect: physical, spiritual, social, and emotional. The emphasis in holistic care is on treating the whole person and not just the illness or injury. This means considering your loved one’s needs from dietary to emotional, cognitive to spiritual – all of which affect health outcomes.
In other words, care focuses on meeting all your loved one’s needs while they are recovering from an illness or injury. In addition to medical treatment for their condition – whether it be surgery or chemotherapy — there are many aspects of their lives that need attention too: eating a healthy diet, taking medications correctly – even getting daily exercise.
Holistic Care at Home: Four Types of Care
Holistic care includes a variety of services and is not something most people can provide alone. For this reason, it’s essential to have a multi-disciplinary team to assist you in meeting all your loved one’s needs. In the past, holistic care meant patients visited different practitioners for separate therapies such as massage or acupuncture. Now there are more types of holistic care available at home that allow family caregivers to focus on their loved ones’ physical, spiritual, social, and emotional well-being all from the comfort of their own homes. These services include:
Homemaking includes housekeeping, meal preparation, and planning menus with budgets, grocery shopping, and errands. Homemakers often work closely with a nurse or therapist to meet the needs of a recovering patient. Some agencies that provide home services may not have staff members who are nurses or therapists, but they do work out an individualized plan with you and your family for all your loved one’s care services based on their needs.
Nursing includes assistance in activities of daily living (ADLs), wound care, medication administration, skin assessment for breakdowns, pain management, IV therapy if needed, catheter changes, administering oxygen if needed. This type of service is usually the most expensive choice for holistic care at home because nurses are highly trained professionals.
Home health aides provide personal care such as bathing and dressing; light housekeeping; meal preparation; transportation to appointments; errands; respite for caregivers, and companionship to stay active. Home health aides are often the least expensive choice for care at home because they are not nurses or licensed therapists.
Caregiver assistance includes assistance with household tasks, daily motivation to keep your loved one engaged in life, support for family caregivers, emotional support, education about the illness/condition to help you better assist your loved one. This type of service is usually less expensive than all other alternatives because it’s offered by an agency rather than a professional company. But many families have found caregiver assistance programs so helpful that they choose to pay more for this additional support — making this option an affordable choice too!