How Does Habilitation Help Teach Personal Care Tasks?
Habilitation can help your developmentally disabled family member to be able to handle some of the tasks that she finds difficult to accomplish on her own now. Some of the most challenging tasks for many developmentally disabled people are personal care tasks. It can be incredibly empowering for your family member to be able to take those steps on her own.
Repetition Helps a Great Deal
Much of habilitation involves repeating tasks to build memory of the steps involved. At first, a habilitation specialist may repeat each step as they help your family member through each step. Gradually, your family member may handle more of the actual task while still getting assistance along the way. Much of this stage involves modeling the behaviors and actions involved in each step of the task your family member is learning.
Prompts Are Another Stage in the Learning Experience
Visual and auditory prompts are another set of steps in learning new personal care tasks. While the repetition helps, it’s not enough on its own for your family member to gain the mastery she wants. Hearing prompts that remind her of the next step or being able to see someone else miming the activity helps your family member to see and hear what comes next.
Stacking Habits Helps to Build Routines
Routines are really what your family member is building by mastering personal care tasks. “Getting ready for the day” involves many smaller tasks, like brushing her teeth, showering, getting dressed, and so much more. Each habit individually gets stacked onto other habits in order to build that routine. Finally, the routine itself helps your family member to be ready for her day, whether she’s staying home or going somewhere else.
Flowcharts and Pictures Can Help
Something else that helps are flowcharts and pictures. Habilitation experts may even help your family member to make her own flowcharts that help her to remember what steps come next. When she needs reminders about how to keep her routine flowing, those charts and pictures are right there to help. Your family member may find those flowcharts helpful long after she’s mastered the skills that she’s learning.
Residential habilitation assists with so many other skills that your family member needs to have in her toolkit in order to live as safely and independently as possible. As your family member masters more of those important skills, she’ll be able to learn increasingly complex skills.
If you are considering residential habilitation in Greenwood, 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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