Skilled Nursing Care: An Essential Guide to the Different Options
Skilled nursing care services are one of the best ways to ensure your dad is supported while he recovers from a sudden illness, surgery, injury, or a medical event like cancer. How do skilled nurses help him? Take a closer look at the different care options.
Wound Care
After a fall, accident, or surgery, your dad may have wounds or an incision that needs proper care. Skilled nurses can check healing wounds and incisions, clean them as needed, and apply new dressings. If there are signs of infection, nurses can make sure your dad starts on antibiotics straight away.
Therapeutic Services
Physical, speech, and occupational therapy are all therapies that your dad may need. Instead of having to go to an office regularly, he can have his therapists come to his house. He’ll work on things like rebuilding strength, improving balance, moving around his home safely, improving swallowing and throat muscle control, and vocalizing.
Prescription Administration
With skilled nursing care, your dad has a nurse in his home to administer medications. If he’s having a reaction to a pill he’s taken, the nurse is there to help him. The nurse can adjust the dosage or talk to the doctor to try something else.
Nutrition Therapy
Does your dad need someone to teach him how to make suitable meals? If he needs a low-sodium diet, meals with no added sugar, or a heart-healthy menu, he’ll learn how to choose appropriate meals and shop for the right ingredients with a specialist. The rest of the family can also learn in these nutrition therapy sessions.
IV Administration and Injections
When your dad needs IV fluids, he’d usually have to go to the hospital to have an IV line inserted. With skilled nurses, the IV line is inserted at his home. He won’t have to leave. Medications, fluids, and nutrients can all be administered through an IV at home.
Injections are another service nurses can help with. Your dad can have his injectable medications administered at his home.
Health Assessments
Health assessments like blood pressure checks, glucose tests, oxygen saturation levels, temperature, and pulse are completed at your dad’s home. His nurses record the readings in his chart for his doctor to look at. If changes to his medications or care treatment are necessary, his nurses can implement the changes right there.
Enteral Feedings
Your dad isn’t able to eat on his own so he’s using a feeding tube for now. With skilled nursing services, your dad’s enteral feedings are taken care of without having to go to the hospital or a clinic. Home enteral feedings ensure he’s getting the nutrients he needs and that his feeding tube is kept clean and in proper working order.
Skilled nursing care services help your dad recover from surgery, illness, or another medical event. Schedule the services he needs by discussing his post-care needs with his surgeon or doctors. You’ll have the information you need when you call a skilled nursing care agency to set up nursing care.
If you or an aging loved one are considering skilled nursing care in Deerfield, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.
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