• Canada’s guide to retirement living and care
• Retirement homes
• Ontario
• Ottawa Region

Respite care in Ottawa Region care homes

Benefit from a short stay in an Ottawa retirement home

Retirement homes and home care services in the Ottawa area offer families an ideal respite from caregiving. Retirement residences are ideally situated to deal with the memory care needs of your aging loved one, and a trial stay in a retirement home is an ideal way to learn more about care options in the Ottawa region. Open your eyes to new possibilities and learn about other means of augmenting care for your aging loved one.

Short stays are a service offered by a variety of homes offering long-term care, memory care and other related care options. These short term stays are also available to those who require convalescence post-surgery or for any other reason. 

How home care services can help

Home care services throughout Ontario also offer respite for caregivers of those with dementia.

Some home care service providers are also associated with adult day programs that allow families a few hours away from caregiving. This is another way of taking a respite from caregiving, where senior family members can interact with others in a social setting, under the oversight of professionals.

Read Ottawa retirement retirement homes before you commit to any type of senior care in the Ottawa Region.

The advantages of a respite stay in a retirement home

Caregiving of family members with Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of dementia is stressful and demanding. If caregivers do not seek help from others, this can lead to burnout. Overtaxing yourself can have negative effects on your own health, can lead to strained relations and other unnecessary negative problems. Professionals in the field caution that it is important for caregivers to monitor their stress and manage it appropriately. 

Respite care offered by professional home care providers or in retirement residences can help alleviate caregivers' stress. When you avail yourself of professional support like that offered by a home care provider or an Ottawa senior's care home listed above, you are opening yourself up to a larger network of care. Many caregivers suffer in silence, failing to properly understand that caring for the elderly is very demanding. It can be a full time job that benefits greatly from professional help.

Those who are trained professionally can administer help with tasks of daily living (ALDs), and will have training in personal control techniques like the Gentle Persuasive Approach (GPA). This latter is a training program specifically focused on providing caregivers with a suite of personal-relation techniques. GPA techniques help personal service workers and other care professionals respond in the most positive fashion to typical scenarios arising from caregiving for dementia sufferers. Interaction with, and exposure to those with training in techniques such as GPA, is just one more benefit of getting professional assistance.

There are further advantages to availing yourself of respite care. Professional caregivers will be able to provide you with helpful feedback specific to the needs of your family member. You can share knowledge and understanding, so that all caregivers of your loved one can do the best possible job of providing care. Get a broader understanding of how you're not alone in feeling fatigued and what others have done to work through caregiver fatigue.

Respite care versus convalescent care

When you contact the Home and Community Care Support Services in Ottawa, you should not that the HCCSS defines this type of stay separately from convalescent care.  You can also find Ottawa care homes offering convalescent care stays, a different type of short term stay, focused on helping people recover from surgery or other health care issues. Retirement residences offer many worhtwhile services for seniors and are too often overlooked as an important resource for families and seniors.