Four Ways Habilitation Helps with Nutrition
It can be difficult for a family member with developmental disabilities to get the hang of cooking. Habilitation services and wellness coordination can shorten that learning curve for your family member by helping her to learn what she needs to know and repeating the tasks with her until she’s got them mastered. As she learns how to prepare her own meals, she’ll feel more independent and better able to participate in her own are.
Teaches about Nutrition
Nutritional balance is a difficult topic for anyone to master, but your family member with developmental disabilities might find it especially difficult to understand why nutrition is so important. RHS can help your family member to understand why it’s important to eat things she likes, but to include those with fruits and vegetables, too. That’s the basis of starting to eat healthier.
Assists with Simple Meal Preparation
Simple meal preparation might have been outside of your family member’s skillset for a long time, but that doesn’t mean she can never learn how to put a meal together. With help from residential habilitation services, your family member can learn what tools she needs to assemble a meal for herself. Mixing prepared foods with cooking simple dishes that she’s able to cook can help her to get more nutrients into her diet.
Educates about All the Steps Involved
There’s more involved than just opening the refrigerator and eating, of course. RHS can help your family member to learn more about planning meals for a few days, shopping for the food she needs, and then cleaning up afterward. Adding those steps as your family member is able to do so allows her to continue to grow her abilities and master more skills along the way.
Offers Help Along the Way
Your family member doesn’t have to worry that she’ll be left on her own with these tasks, even after she’s learned them. Habilitation specialists are right there with her, prompting her if she needs extra assistance. If she runs into any roadblocks in the form of skills she hasn’t mastered yet, they’re there for her for that, too. Your family member can lean on the help she’s getting when she’s not confident and stand on her own when she is.
RHS can help your family member to make much bigger strides toward eating healthier than you or she might have thought possible. Soon enough she’ll feel empowered by all that she’s learning and accomplishing.
If you are considering residential habilitation in Broad Ripple, IN, please call the caring staff at RSI Cares. Serving Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: 317-471-0750.
As a practicing Registered Nurse, Etelka was keenly aware of a void in quality patient care that could be provided in the home. She embarked upon a journey to develop a home health care agency that would exceed all expectations and become a trusted partner to physicians and patients.
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where shewasthe In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
Etelka was honored as a “Health Care Hero” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The issue can be read online here:
http://mags.ibj.com/activemagazine/welcome/html/ibjhch.html.
After clicking on the link, then click on the image of the issue’s front page. After that, you can browse through the issue or click in a box near the top of your internet browser to adjust the page to 17, which is where Etelka’s article appears.
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