Best Home Care Winter Safety Tips: Building a Home Care Network

Winter presents a variety of dangers. Frigid air temperatures, slippery roads, and hazardous snowstorms make going outdoors during these months not only dangerous, but life threatening. Every Minnesotan has their way of keeping warm and safe when winter begins to rear its frigid head; but for elderly home care patients, extra steps should be taken to ensure safety this season.

No matter the age of a home care patient, there is always more than one person providing care. For children, these individuals may be a combination of a teacher and a parent. For seniors, home care may be provided a personal care assistant, a family caregiver, and a neighbor. The support these connections provide allows the individual to maintain their lifestyle and carryout everyday activities when they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. At Best Home Care, we like to call these connections a Home Care Network.

Whether they know it or not, every home care patient has a home care network. In times when the weather turns dangerous (severe heat and cold), this network plays a vital role in ensuring the patient’s health and well-being.

Here are some tips to find out who is your home care network and how seniors should use them this winter:

How to Build a Home Care Network:

1. Begin by listing all the names and contact information of those you are in contact with on a regular basis. These can be family members, friends, doctors, neighbors, etc.
2. Next, separate this list into individuals within driving distance who could get to you quickly in case of an emergency.

How to Use a Home Care Network:

• Schedule a time once a week where a person from your network can visit you
• During and after a snowstorm or other inclement weather, contact members of your network and ask for help with any shoveling, ice clearing, etc.
• In frigid temperatures, ask your network to run errands for you to avoid going out in the cold.

Members of a home care network have an equally important job this winter. Check-in regularly with your senior home care patient to ensure their furnace is working, home is safe, and they have all the food and supplies they need.

For more advice on building a network and staying safe this winter, contact the home care professionals at Best Home Care.