When there's no place like home

For many families, it starts at the holidays. An odor in a home that was always immaculate. A crack in routine. Unspoken sibling questions via eyebrows across a room as it becomes evident that age has finally taken its toll.

Of course, coming to grips with this means a host of new dilemmas. If living independently is out of the question, what next? Who gets to make these big decisions? What if no decisions are made? What about the property? All the stuff? And what if changes are unwelcome?

We know many of you who read our Cura Health Tips are well acquainted with these quandaries. Many of you have been there, and that's how we've gotten to know you. You have stories we could all benefit from, and hopefully you'll share those stories with friends who will face similar dilemmas.

But for you who aren't accustomed to making life-changing decisions for loved ones who may not appreciate the steps you'll initiate, we'd like to introduce you to how Cura for Care may be able to bridge these problems.

Cura for Care: A Bridge Between Safety and Independence.

The first, most obvious benefit hiring Cura home care staff brings is safety. If an elderly person is able to live safely at home independently, there's no conversation. What a blessing!

But there can come a point when it's no longer safe to assume meals can be prepared without someone checking to make sure a potholder doesn't get left on a burner, when medications are becoming too complicated to trust to habit, or "I just don't have strength to take a shower, and I've gone way too long without one," enters the conversation.

At that point, many older adults fear losing control of their lives, and for good reason. This is the point that the car keys go missing. Suddenly a person goes from in control of their own life to at the mercy of a facility's lock system and staff who are hopefully kind and attentive. That's terrifying, especially for people who haven't had to ask for permission to go out or come in for the good part of a century.

Cura alleviates this terror by allowing a person to continue in control of their own person and plans. We work to facilitate an acceptable arrangement that family can feel comfortable with, while still affording the individual the dignity of remaining in their homes and in control of their own lives.

Practically speaking, that means that we provide hygiene help in a respectful manner. We prepare meals according to the individual's preferred style and even using their own recipes if that's what they want. (We love learning from them!) We work at the individual's pace, meaning that if the family only needs someone an hour here or there, we have no minimums, or we can provide 24/7 support by moving in for the week to help them weather an ice storm. (Do we have the stories!)

Cura for Care: A Bridge Connecting Family and Friends.

"How's it going?"

"Busy."

Who isn't? Probably our aging loved ones. While that can mean things are that much busier for us, their lives can be overly quiet. Lonely. Isolated.

As we have learned over the past few years, isolation can take a deadly toll on the mind and emotions. We were designed for connection. But when you're already overtaxed, coming to visit a lonely loved one can always feel like trying to get away from a person who desperately wants another hour of time you don't have.

Cura provides connection. Whether it's the friendship of a trusted care professional, or transportation to safely return to church and other social events with a helper, enlisting Cura means the end to loneliness and a return to a functioning social life, absolute medicine -- assuming their social circle laughs a lot!

Cura for Care: A Bridge Home.

No matter how nice the hotel, AirBnB or guest room, we all know that there's no place like home. How much more true that is when the body is weak and the senses are feeble.

Cura for Care enables home to remain what it was designed to be for as long as possible. Rather than becoming a real estate dilemma or simply an investment, let home remain home as long as it's needed.

With Cura, the lights stay on. We can replace the front porch bulb, take the trash can to the curb, help call the insurance company about the tree that fell on the garage, or be there when the plumber arrives. No longer is living at home a scary proposition. With Cura, home is the nicest place there is.