How Does Habilitation Help People with Developmental Disabilities?
Residential habilitation is a service that helps people with developmental disabilities to learn and to master skills that they may not have been ready to learn until now. Habilitation offers the chance for as much repetition and practice as your family member needs in order to truly master the skills she needs. Her goals may involve improving her ability to be independent or simply learning how to do specific things. There’s no goal that’s truly too small.
Assisting with Health Monitoring
Very often people with developmental disabilities also have health concerns and needs that need both monitoring and intervention. Keeping track of physical changes and helping with medication compliance, mobility, and other concerns is crucial. This enables your family member to have the health support she needs to be able to focus on other things. When her health is managed properly, your family member is less likely to be distracted or uncomfortable, which makes a difference for her.
Teaching Socialization and Communication Skills
Communicating with other people and engaging properly in social interactions is also important and it can be difficult for people with developmental disabilities to understand fully how to do those things. Practicing with habilitation specialists helps a lot. Your family member may also gain experience in making decisions and solving problems, which also helps when interacting with other people.
Building Independence with ADLs
Activities of daily living, also called ADLs, may be one of the areas in which your family member needs the most help. These types of activities involve tasks such as personal hygiene, chores around the house, and making and eating meals. Basically, any types of activities that are helpful in daily life fall under this category. These are also activities your family member needs to be able to handle easily without much prompting in order to gain more independence.
Managing Disability-specific Concerns
There may be other tasks and activities your family member needs assistance with that vary due to the disabilities she faces and the specific skills that she needs and wants to master. Some of those might involve finding and keeping a job, improving motor skills, or learning how to use public transportation. There can be a lot of different skills that fall under this category.
Residential habilitation can be the key to your family member being able to improve independence. This can be a huge overarching goal for your family member and all of the small steps that add up to meeting that goal are so important.
If you are considering respite care 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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