As a home care provider, you deal with many different struggles in your agency—from caregiver retention, to client referrals, to building a viable, stable business. One of the areas that can fall between the cracks or go unnoticed is loneliness in your clients. Senior loneliness is an ever increasing struggle in the home care industry. With the day-to-day tasks of life decreasing, seniors may struggle to find purpose, which can lead to loneliness and a decline in health. How does loneliness in seniors affect your home care agency? Below, I’ve highlighted how loneliness affects satisfaction and how your caregivers can help.
How Addressing Loneliness Increases Client Satisfaction
In a recent study, a staggering 43% of seniors reported feeling lonely. Older adults who struggle with loneliness have a 29% increased risk of coronary heart disease, 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 64% increase in developing dementia. What does this mean for your home care agency? Loneliness may seem to be an emotional challenge, but these statistics have proven that it can also affect your client’s physical health as well. When loneliness is effectively reduced, there are improvements in both health status and overall attitude. A more positive outlook raises client satisfaction ratings, thereby, increasing their likelihood to stay with your home care agency.
How Addressing Loneliness Increases Caregiver Retention
While part of caregiver turnover is economic, a second part is job satisfaction. Caring for seniors with a more positive outlook improves caregivers’ overall job satisfaction. Caregiver satisfaction directly correlates to client satisfaction. If caregivers feel they connect with their clients and make a difference, their satisfaction and job fulfillment will increase which will show in their work, thereby, increasing client satisfaction. When caregivers have happy clients, they will stay with your home care agency for the long term.
While loneliness may not seem to affect the “big picture” of your home care agency, if your clients are unhappy, it could adversely affect the growth of your business. Take the time to reach out to your clients and listen to their feedback.
To learn more about the importance of addressing senior loneliness and how it can benefit home care business, register for June’s free CORE webinar with Home Care Pulse COO Erik Madsen, and grandPad’s Chief Gerontologist, Dr. Kerry Burnight. We look forward to having you join us!
Best,
Aaron Marcum
CEO and Founder of Home Care Pulse
This was an informative article. As someone who works in the home care agency, I agree. E & S Home Care Solutions attempts to eliminate client loneliness by providing excellent caregivers and checking on them frequently.
Loneliness is responsible for increased risk of many health diseases like heart disease, stroke, and developing dementia for our seniors. So, we have to give them a special home care services and also we need to hire some senior caregivers to reduce this and improvements in both health status and overall attitude and we also need to make a positive outlook for both the senior and the caregivers. This article is very informative and also helpful.
Thank you for sharing this great article here. Keep posting such more informative.