Senior Medical Crisis at Your Home: What Do You Do?
If your senior parent is aging at home and regularly visits your home, you should be ready for your senior parent to have a medical emergency. Especially with the holidays coming up. Now is a great time to review your emergency plan for your senior loved one. So that everyone in the household knows what to do if your senior parent has a medical emergency while visiting your home. Some things to think about when creating your emergency plan:
Pack A Bag For Them And Keep It At Your House
You should keep a small overnight bag for your senior loved one at your home, packed with a few changes of clothes, briefs and wipes, a bathrobe, slippers, socks, shoes, a toothbrush, toothpaste or denture cleaner, an extra pair of glasses, soap, deodorant, a hair brush and anything else they might need if they have to stay in the hospital for a day or two. If your senior parent has home care, you can ask the home care provider to suggest comfortable clothes.
Don’t forget to pack a phone charger for yourself and a tablet or phone with music, books, and entertainment for your senior loved one. You will be glad to have all those things in the event of an emergency.
Know Which Ambulance To Call
Always call 911 when your senior loved one gets hurt. But make sure you know their insurance covers which ambulance. Because depending on their insurance, the insurance company may not cover the cost of the ambulance ride if you don’t use an approved provider. It’s a good idea to have a printed list of all the ambulance providers and other senior transportation companies in the area, if you need to find information on a specific company.
Know Where Local Hospitals Are
If you ride with your senior parent in the ambulance, someone will need to drive your car to the hospital. Make sure you have a list of the hospitals in the area and their addresses. Then your other family members can find directions to get to the hospital. After that, they can leave your car or stay with you while your senior parent is being treated.
Keep Important Papers Ready To Go
You will need a lot of paperwork if you have to go to the hospital with your senior parent. Insurance information, identification, powers of attorney, medical forms, and many other papers. Keeping it all organized is easy if you put it in a binder with plastic sleeves. Then you can grab the binder on the way out of the door, and you have everything you need. It will also make it easier for the medical staff if you have all that paperwork at your fingertips.