This Is Why Your Loved One Needs Help At Home After Breaking Their Hip
ShareBroken hips are unfortunately common in senior citizens. As the bones become weaker and thinner in old age, breaks like these become a possibility from even minor falls and injuries. So if your loved one has already experienced a broken hip and is just now getting home, you might want to consider hiring someone to help them out. Here are a few good reasons why and what you should do.
Mobility Problems
One of the biggest problems that people often have after breaking a hip is that their mobility is shot. Think about it: the body's nerves, blood vessels, muscles, and tendons all run through the hips. When a break occurs, all of these systems are thrown out of alignment and can cause pain and stiffness in the region. This problem only gets worse if your loved one spends a long time in the hospital cooped up waiting for their hip to heal.
As a result, when they come home, they may not be as agile as they once were. This could be a particular problem if they were already experiencing mobility difficulties before they ever broke their hip.
Danger of Future Falls
It might come as a surprise, but once your loved one has experienced a significant fall, they're likely to have it happen again. In fact, falling just once can double or triple the risk of future falls in the elderly. So even once your loved one has their full mobility back courtesy of physical therapy, there's still a chance that they could be badly hurt all over again.
What to Do
If you're worried about these problems, then you should hire someone to care for your loved one in their home.
There's a wide range of reasons to do so, even outside of the potential problems stated before. Home care assistants can help with shopping, bathing, cleaning, and even feeding senior citizens who are in need of it. They can help to ensure that your loved one is doing their physical therapy exercises under a watchful eye so that they don't experience more injuries, and the assistant can take over at any time that your loved one seems to be struggling with day-to-day chores.
Hiring a home care assistant is the best course of action here. It's not worth uprooting your loved one and placing them in a care facility just because they fell. Leave them with the comfort of their home and a home care assistant looking after them.