Currently, every month on the calendar stands for something. In fact, some months stand for multiple things, as there are more conditions and recognitions to be awarded than there are months in the year. In fact, November alone is shared by six different awareness campaigns. Among the two most important are National Home Health Care Month and National Hospice/Palliative Care Month.
As a mobility equipment company that specializes in creating innovative mobility chairs to assist caregivers in providing home care, we see it as incredibly important to recognize home care and hospice care providers for the hard work that they do all year around.
What Is National Hospice/ Palliative Care Month?
National Hospice and Palliative Care Month is a month that is dedicated to raising awareness about hospice and palliative care, the people that work in the caregiving industry, and the people in need of hospice and palliative care. The movement has also set out to show people that hospice care is not a depressing topic, but is instead a care that allows for people with life-limiting and incurable diseases to live their life to the fullest in the most comfortable way to the best of their ability.
The president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, Edo Banach, claimed in a statement that, “Every year, nearly 1.4 million people living with a life-limiting illness receive care from hospices in this country.” Can you imagine? 1.4 million people are cared for by highly trained professionals that help guide people that are terminally ill through the hardest challenge of their life.
What Is National Home Health Care Month?
Home Care And Hospice Month is extremely similar to National Hospice and Palliative Care Month in the sense that its goal is to honor those that go out of their way as professionals to provide care to those in need — with the only difference being that the care is provided in an in-home setting. Home health care is an important service that is offered to people that might otherwise be forced to live in a medical care facility. Rather than moving older loved ones, or loved ones that are suffering from debilitating diseases such as dementia, multiple sclerosis, post-op-recovery, and more — home care allows people to let their loved ones age in place — in the comfort and familiarity of their own home.
President of the Home Care Aid Week (November 14-20th), William A. Dombi said in a statement that “Home care and hospice nurses, therapists, aides, and other providers who choose to use their lives to serve our country’s aged, disabled and dying. This noble work deserves our recognition and praise and we celebrate November as home care and hospice month for that very reason.” We could not have said that any better, as home care and hospice characters alike experience hardships on a day to day basis that most of us wouldn’t dream of. But what hardships do these hard-working men and women experience?
Emotional Trauma
As a caregiver, hospice or home care, there is a great deal of emotional trauma that must be dealt with — even if you are not related to the person that you are caring for. Sure, it might make more sense that someone providing in-home care to their elderly or sick parent deals with emotional trauma as they watch their loved one deteriorate, but for those that work in the hospice and home care industry it is not entirely that different. When a hospice worker or home health care worker visits a particular patient for some time, relationships are developed, whether it was intentional or not — it is simply human nature. To watch anyone deteriorate is hard, especially after relationships are made.
This is why we recognize hospice workers and home care workers in November. Every day they work hard and combat emotional stresses to help people that cannot help themselves. They help them get dressed, eat, take their medicine, bathe, and exercise so that their patient might live a longer and more comfortable life.
Physical Risk
As well as being at risk of emotional stress, care providers like hospice workers and home care workers are also at risk of injury. When someone is injured or sick, the might need help performing simple tasks that we take for granted every day like getting out of bed, walking, and sitting. Caregivers help their loved ones and patients do just that. The risk of injury arises from the injured or ill person’s inability to move freely or efficiently. Every single day caregivers are injured while trying to lift their patients up, sit them down, or move from point A to Point B — because often times when the patient fall, the caregiver falls with them.
Caregivers put themselves at risk both mentally and physically to make the lives of other more comfortable and more enjoyable. At HomeCARE furniture by ComforTek, we thank you.
Our Effort To Help
At HomeCARE furniture by ComforTek, we manufacture mobility equipment like mobility assistance chairs and other homecare furnishings in an effort to make caregiver’s lives both easier, and safer. Our products are designed to decrease the risk of caregiver and patient injury in potentially dangerous situations in the dining room and kitchen areas.
When someone loses mobility as a result of an injury or illness, they lose their ability to balance, as well as their range of motions in their joints, making it incredibly difficult and dangerous to sit and stand without aid. Our mobility assistance chairs are designed in a way so that the caregiver can safely seat their loved one or patient at a safe distance from the table, and then push them in gently. If you feel as if our mobility assistance chairs could benefit you as a caregiver, we urge you to browse our store.
Caregivers and hospice care providers work hard every single day to take care of others — and for that, we thank you!