Taking care of your loved one after they have had some kind of illness or injury that requires a lot of care, or a family member who is elderly, can be stressful and tiring. You may feel like you are trapped in your house. You can't leave your house because your loved one needs you to be there, and needs your care. That isn't good for you. It's not good for your loved one either. There are things that you can do. One of them is respite care. 

What Is Respite Care?

Respite means break. Not just a break, but a chance to de-stress and gather yourself. Respite care is when someone comes in to take care of your loved one for a time. That gives you a chance to take care of yourself, and take care of other things. Respite care can be as short as a couple of hours or as long as a few days to a week.

Where Can You Find Respite Care?

 The thing about respite care is that you really don't want to have just any person come in to take care of your family member. What you want is to have someone who will help your family member. Someone who can handle things like basic wound care, or an elderly family member's particular needs. 

One place to look for people who can help you with respite care is a home health care agency. There are a lot of reasons for this. One reason for this is because they will have people who are trained medical professionals. That means if your loved one has particular health issues, like dementia or wounds, the person who is providing health care will be able to handle those needs. Having someone from a home health care agency take care of your loved one means that you can take your break with no worries. 

Are There Different Kinds of Respite Care?

There are actually different kinds of respite care. One is in-home respite care. That means that someone comes to your house and takes care of your loved one there. Another option is something like an adult care program. With a program likes that, you drop your loved one off at a center for a few hours or a day. At that center, they are taken care off and given the opportunities to do things like socialize or going on field trips. 

Being your family member's primary caregiver can be very important to you. That doesn't mean that it isn't tiring and stressful for you. Respite care, from places such as ComForcare - North County San Diego, can help with that.