Independent Living & Effective Personal Care in Health and Social Care

This essay discusses the concept of effective personal care and its importance in promoting independent living among older adults within their own homes. It outlines various aspects of personal care, including assistance with daily activities, maintenance of healthy practices, and the creation of a safe home environment. The essay emphasizes the significance of social interaction, emotional support, and financial security in enabling independent living. It also explores the role of community healthcare workers in advocating for, mediating, and enabling independent living through health promotion strategies. Furthermore, the impact of partnerships in achieving this goal is examined, focusing on early education, resource provision, and addressing health issues. The essay concludes by highlighting the importance of a collaborative approach to support older adults in living fulfilling and independent lives during their senior years. Desklib provides solved assignments and study tools for students.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE 1
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Student Name
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EFFECTIVE PERSONAL CARE

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Effective personal care refers to things that an individual need support with such as
showering, bathing, dressing, application of creams and lotions and toileting all being able to be
done at the comfort of an individual home setting. Effective personal care requires daily
maintenance of healthy practices such as showering and bathing, oral hygiene, support with
shaving, foot care for those who have been diagnosed of diabetic and physical exercise for those
that are overweight. On the other hand, independent living may refer to retirement homes or
retirement communities where older people are looking for a lifestyle that can engage their day
to day chore actively. Independent living mostly involves using options to make more out of the
retirement period.
Effective personal care should be provided to individuals of old age to promote
independent living among their homes. This may include, financial security, social interaction
and integration, emotional support, home safety, and a healthy living. Personal care should be
provided to individuals during their senior years to enable them to plan well for their retirement
when they age and helping them live independent lives. This may include ensuring they have the
right resources available to support them during retirement period to live happily and safely
within their own homes (Bond, Buckingham and Schumacher, 2015).
APPROACHES
Social interaction and integration
Majority of people get isolated as they age especially when they live alone at home.
Among the risks associated with isolations may include, loneliness, physical safety, and
depression. Engaging in social activities actively is very important as people age to achieve the
objective of independent living. This helps to improve both emotional and mental health
problems including physical vitality. Volunteering can also be another approach of making one

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get involved which makes someone feel appreciated and valued. Active social interaction can
enhance motivation in individual life making him or her be stronger every morning and have a
feeling of fulfillment and happiness (Cangiano and Shutes, 2010).
Home safety
Independent living requires making some modifications at home to meet the needs of
ageing population. For example, to prevent the risks of injury on slippery flow, smooth carpeting
can be removed to prevent falling and allow a better mobility for the old persons. Staying at
home as an independent person requires protecting your safety and health through making living
areas practical. This is very important, especially when promoting personalized care for people
who want to live an independent lives. Extra home safety measures may include installation of
medical alert systems, home alarm systems and cellular phones can enhance independent living
at home. This can help one during times of emergency thereby giving peace of mind (Carter,
Brown and Brett, 2014).
Emotional Support
Maintaining a close relationship with people who care and trust helps in closing
emotional vacuum. Lack of companionship can affect independent living thereby leading to
depression or loneliness. This may involve someone whom you can share feelings with and
confide.
Financial Security
Ability to live a comfortable independent life during retirement depends on the plans
someone had before the retire period. Having enough funds can enable you to do things that you
love during your retirement period and enhance independent living. This may include being able
to pay for home upkeeps, insurance, health covers as well as home care assistance. The best

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approach is having early education on the right investments which can help someone during the
retirement period. This allows a consistent and stable income utilization during senior years.
Another measure may including a selection of the right period of time for retirement for easy
management of independent life while living at home (Harper, 2016).
HOW HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROMOTE INDEPENDENT LIVING
Community Healthcare Worker
A community healthcare worker can help in implementing independent living among
people of old age. This can be achieved through various health promotion strategies such as
advocate, mediate and enable. Through this strategies, individuals will be able to achieve their
ability to live an independent life at their homes easily and without difficulties (Katz, 2012).
Advocate. Community healthcare workers can emphasize the need for strengthening
financial investments among people while they are still at a senior age. This is may include
advising them advising them on the need to seek education on the right types of investments
which can help them during retirement. A well-planned community is likely to experience fewer
cases of individuals who can sustain themselves at home. Community health workers can be
used to assess those families who need urgent care and stress on health risks associated with old
age which requires independent living (Changhyun Kang, 2013).
Mediate. Community health care workers need to intervene when there are health issues
affecting old age people in the community and help bring solutions to their loves. This can
include sourcing of emergency treatment when they get urgent conditions such as stroke which
can affect their ability to sustain independent life (Lai and Taylor-Robinson, 2018).
Enable. Community health workers have a responsibility of ensuring old age people in
the community access reliable information about health issues affecting them. They also need to

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make it possible for retired people to easily access medical services without difficulty or home
diagnosis. For those old people with physical disabilities, community health care workers need to
negotiate on their behalf for a donation of wheelchairs to improve their mobility.
IMPACT OF PARTNERSHIP
A partnership can help old age people to realize the importance of independent living
through early education on the importance of financial security during senior age. The
partnership involves working with multi-agent departments in achieving a common goal hence it
can be beneficial to individuals approaching retirement age to plan their finances well to able to
sustain themselves during that period. A partnership may also help in the donation of
wheelchairs for those people who are disabled in the community to improve mobility (Morris
and Campbell, 2017). They can educate people on health issues associated with old age
addressing their solutions hence helping in control of conditions such as depression and
loneliness which are associated with poor emotional support for older people in our societies. A
partnership can improve realization of independent living through the provision of enough funds
to promote independent living among people through the covering of the project on a wider
geographic location and reaching a large number of population.
References
Bond, A., Buckingham, A. and Schumacher, J. (2015). A survey of UK acute clinicians'
knowledge of personal protective requirements for infectious diseases and chemical,
biological, and radiological warfare agents. Critical Care, 19(Suppl 1), p.P86.

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Cangiano, A. and Shutes, I. (2010). Ageing, Demand for Care and the Role of Migrant Care
Workers in the UK. Journal of Population Ageing, 3(1-2), pp.39-57.
Carter, J., Brown, M. and Brett, B. (2014). Creative Teaching in Health and Social Care using
the UK Data Service. Health and Social Care Education, 3(1), pp.16-22.
Changhyun Kang (2013). Tools of Linkage for Integrating Health and Social Care:
Commissioning of UK. Health and Social Welfare Review, 33(1), pp.417-450.
Harper, S. (2016). Making the UK more Resilient to Age-Structural Change and Longevity:
Translating Academic Evidence into Policy. Journal of Population Ageing, 9(4), pp.285-
287.
Katz, M. (2012). The Value of Community Health Workers. Archives of Internal Medicine,
172(22), p.1758.
Lai, E. and Taylor-Robinson, D. (2018). Simulating the impact of poverty reduction on social
inequalities in adolescent mental health in the UK: a causal mediation analysis using the
UK Millennium Cohort Study. The Lancet, 392, p.S48.
Morris, R. and Campbell, S. (2017). ISQUA17-2610 Where Next for Primary Care Patient
Safety? A National UK Prioritization Setting Partnership. International Journal for
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