How to Plan for Short-Term Care for Seniors: A Step-by-Step Guide

Whether you need care to help you or a loved one recover from a sudden accident or as part of a surgery recovery regimen, finding the right respite care near you can be difficult.

Contact ComForCare to get in touch with one of our friendly team members to discuss what the best care could look like for you. If you would rather learn more first, we can demystify the process for you.

Step 1: Talk to Your Care Provider About Short-Term Home Care

Your family doctor and any other specialists are a crucial starting point for this process because they can tell you about any specific care concerns associated with an upcoming respite period. Not every care provider can offer the same level of care. Your doctor may be able to point you in the direction of a service provider with the right specialization or explore creative ways of filling any gaps in care.

Step 2: Decide on Home Care v. Respite Care Facilities Near You

While both options have their merits, at-home senior respite care near you is often what is best for rest and recovery. In general, it is less stressful to receive care from the comfort of your own home than an unfamiliar location. If you or your loved one are using respite care to recover from surgery or injury, keeping stress at a minimum is crucial. The recovery period in either situation is almost as important as the initial treatment. If someone in recovery overexerts themself, they run the risk of lengthening their healing time, or re-injury.

Step 3: Figure Out Your Priorities for Short-Term Care Near You

If you only act on one step in this guide, this is the one! There are a lot of different considerations when it comes to making the right at-home care choices, so consider the following:

• Budget – Any service chosen must be within your means. By choosing a caregiver you ultimately cannot afford, you will put unnecessary stress on your bank account and may cause the care services to be terminated before recovery has finished. 
• Timing – Do you or your loved one need 24-hour care? If not, would your recovery still benefit from it? If you are unsure, this might be an important point to cover when you meet with your doctor.
• Level of Care – In other words, just how much will you or your loved one need a care professional to help around the house? It's important to determine if they are there as a safeguard or as necessary support for activities of daily living, such as bathing, dressing, and toileting.

Step 4: Get Everyone Together

While the decision-making process should be in the hands of the care recipient as often as possible, getting loved ones together for this process can be helpful. Whether they will be providing helping hands or helping to come up with a support plan during the respite care period, familial / social support is as important as professional at-home care.

Step 5: Research Respite Care Options Near You

We recommend starting with a simple online search using terms and phrases that reference the kinds of priorities you established in Step 3. It can be helpful to add wording with “near me” as well, like “respite care near me”. This addition will use the location feature of search engines to find options that are in your area, filtering out ones that are too far to be useful. 

For example, if a ComForCare location is near you, it will show up in your search results, offering you a high-quality, short-term care option for your senior loved one.

Step 6: Set Up Interviews to Help Decide

Once you’ve short-listed options, it is crucial to talk to them, ideally in-person; however, if your list is longer, it can be helpful to eliminate options with a simple phone screen. These interactions should make it clear if an option is the right fit for you. 

Step 7: Consider Help from Trusted Professionals in At-Home Respite Care Services

Even with our guide laid out for you, you are likely still missing a crucial piece of the puzzle: care professionals with decades of experience. While you should always do your own research and come to your own conclusions, this is a serious process with many different options to consider. Having professional support is always a good thing, and our team at ComForCare is always ready to provide it. We can walk you through the services we offer near you, identifying if they are the right fit or not.

Contact us to speak with one of our friendly team members about what excellence in respite care near you means to us.