Your senior might have kept a tidy home for most of her life, but is that changing now? There can be a lot of reasons that your elderly family member has a lot more clutter in her home now, and having help from in-home care professionals and her medical providers can help you to put together a plan.

Clutter Can Be a Symptom

Your senior is going through a lot of changes as she ages. Some of those changes are physical and others involve cognitive health. If your senior’s home is suddenly a lot more cluttered than it used to be, there could be some reasons for that change. Paying attention to the symptom of increased clutter helps you to take a closer look at what might be going on with your senior’s health.

Clutter Causes Serious Health Risks for Your Senior

When clutter starts to really build up, it can have some serious health implications for your senior. It’s not just a symptom, but clutter can do things like trap dust and pests that make breathing more difficult. Clutter can also reduce the space in your senior’s home that she may need for mobility. Taken to the extreme, clutter could even block necessary medical care from being able to easily reach your senior.

Your Senior May Not Want to Declutter

The obvious solution might be to go ahead and get some decluttering done, but that might not be as easy as it sounds. Your elderly family member may have formed an attachment to some of the items in her home. That makes decluttering a lot more difficult for everyone involved. Getting to the root of why your elderly family member wants to hold onto those items can help her to let some of them go.

Once You Declutter, There’s Maintenance

When you finally do help your elderly family member to remove some of the items she no longer needs from her home, there’s still maintenance involved. Clutter has a way of coming back, and if your senior built up more clutter because she’s not able to keep up with daily tasks, she may need extra help. In-home care professionals can help your elderly family member with those household tasks that are more difficult. That allows you to stay on top of what’s going on, too.

Decluttering Can Be an Emotional Process

Remember that decluttering can be a really emotional process for your elderly family member. Even if you think the items she’s hanging onto are obviously disposable, your senior may not agree. Tackling the process slowly or finding ways to accommodate your senior’s feelings is really important.

Try Not to Pressure Your Senior

Unless your elderly family member’s safety is immediately at risk, it’s better to avoid pressuring her to tackle this process too quickly. Adding pressure to the situation might make her dig in her heels even more, which complicates everything. Decluttering slowly and steadily and having help from home care professionals to maintain the effects can help a lot.

Decluttering can help your elderly family member to be safer, healthier, and to enjoy her home more, even as her health is changing. Finding the right way to approach decluttering with your senior can help her to experience lasting results.

If you are considering in-home care in Galleria, TX for an aging loved one, please call the caring staff at At Your Side Home Care. We will answer all of your senior care questions. Call today: (832) 271-1600.

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Donna Wrabel, LMSW

Co-Owner at At Your Side Home Care

For most of us, the word "home" evokes warm feelings of comfort, security and well-being. For older adults, home also means holding tight to cherished memories and maintaining self-esteem and independence. When illness, injury or age make life a little more challenging, remaining at home in a comfortable, familiar environment encourages recovery and enhances the quality of life. Home can be defined as a private residence, an independent or assisted living facility or even a short term stay in the hospital, we recognize the additional benefits provided by a personal, professional assistant.

Our Certified Nurse Aides, 24-Hour Live-in Assistants and Home Health Aides are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We also provide the security and confidence of 24-hour Telephone Assistance, so fast, reliable help is always available when it's needed. To learn more about our homecare services see our homecare services page.

Different people need different levels of homecare. To meet the requirements of our clients, At Your Side Homecare maintains consistent staffing levels of caring professionals. Homecare service is available for as little as a few hours a week, or as many as 24 hours a day, seven days a week

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