Skilled Home Health Care for Stroke

Symptoms of a stroke can vary for each patient, but they may include:

• Difficulty walking or problems with coordination
• Difficulty speaking or slurred speech
• Paralysis on one side of the body
• Difficulty swallowing
• Blurred vision, double vision or temporary loss of vision in one eye
• Mental confusion or inability to understand
• Lightheadedness or vertigo

Each patient’s plan of care is tailored to meet their unique care needs and health goals. Most commonly, home care helps stroke patients:

• Remain independent at home
• Reduce potential ER visits/hospitalizations
• Decrease their risk of falling
• Conserve energy

Elara Caring offers many skilled services, including a diagnosis-specific stroke program, to support patients as they manage their recovery at home.

• Home care nursing, for example, offers education to patients on the disease process and their medications. Nurses can also provide blood pressure monitoring.
• Physical therapy helps with balance and strengthening, gait training, assistive device teaching and creating a customized home exercise program.
• Occupational therapists provide training to help patients accomplish their activities of daily living, like dressing, bathing and meal preparation, and they can assess patients’ homes for safety issues or fall risks, too. They also teach patients to use adaptive equipment and offer compensatory strategies for visual impairment.
• Speech therapy can create a muscle strengthening and training program to aid in swallow and speech recovery. They also teach techniques to help with memory deficits and cognitive impairments.
• A home health aide can assist with bathing and grooming.
• A medical social worker offers counseling to cope with a new or existing diagnosis and lifestyle changes. They can also connect patients and their families with community resources.