Canadians are living longer and longer, and rightfully expecting a high quality of life that lasts all the way through their golden years. With the right support, nothing can stop today’s senior citizens from achieving their best possible health.
It’s skilled and compassionate Health Care Assistants who make this fulfillment possible for elderly individuals nationwide. If you’re a compassionate person with a sincere interest in helping others, you should consider a Health Care Assistant career of your own.
Learn how Health Care Aides promote healthy lifestyles for seniors in five essential ways.
1. Injury Prevention: A Health Care Aide Puts Safety First
Once you’ve earned your diploma, you’ll be eligible for employment everywhere from hospitals and respite care facilities to seniors’ centres and individual residential homes. Your training and practicum will teach you the appropriate theory and methods you need to keep today’s seniors physically safe.
You’ll learn to follow safety protocols of established institutions and to maintain your own safety standards as a self-employed, independent home care worker. Wherever you are and whoever you work with as a Health Care Aide, your clients’ safety will become your utmost concern.
2. Physical Activity: A Health Care Assistant Boosts Senior Fitness
Elderly citizens in your community may have diminished physical health because they don’t have access to able-bodied individuals like you, who can help them rise and shine and exercise their muscles.
When you become a Health Care Aide, others will rely on you to complete the most basic and essential tasks, from getting out of bed in the morning to keeping themselves clean. Today’s best Health Care training prepares you for this sometimes challenging yet always rewarding work.
3. Healthy Eating: Health Care Assistants Promote Good Nutrition
Mental dexterity is largely impacted by an elderly individual’s access to healthy, nutrient-rich food. The right diet is even proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, memory deficiencies, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure that often accompany old age.
Without Health Care Assistants, many elderly individuals would not be able to ingest the foods that keep them healthy. If you pursue this career path, you’ll get to help prepare meals, and help clients with the daily necessity of eating healthy.
4. Access to Appointments for Professional Healthcare Intervention
If you to become a Health Care Assistant, you’ll join the ranks of your community’s front-line healthcare providers, and work alongside them to promote the health and wellbeing of your clients. Sometimes your clients will need care that one of your specialized peers can provide, like dental work or a medical procedure.
For example, by taking a client in a nursing home to an optician session in their residential facility, Health Care Aides promote both that client’s healthy vision and capacity for self-care.
5. Health Care Assistants Ensure Social and Emotional Wellbeing
Perhaps the most meaningful way Health Care Aides promote seniors’ health is by giving their clients support, encouragement, respect, and kindness that make them socially and emotionally healthy. And many Health Care Assistants are drawn to the job for the emotional care aspect.
“I don’t like thinking of someone that’s in the last chapter of life sitting somewhere alone and feeling unwanted,” says Megan, a Stenberg Health Care Aide graduate. “The answer for me is simple: I want to help make a person’s last years ones they can enjoy.”
She says the companionship of an “empathetic, compassionate, patient, and genuine” aide makes a world of difference in an elderly person’s capacity for comfort and happiness.
In all these ways and more, Health Care Assistants are truly the people who make healthy, active, and fulfilling lives possible, client by client.
Do you want to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others?
Visit Stenberg and see if our Health Care Assistant training program is right for you!
