Our Chronic Disease Support Services
A chronic illness is a long-term condition requiring ongoing medical attention and often limiting activities of daily living. While chronic conditions cannot be cured, they are best managed with the right, consistent chronic disease support system in place.
This essential, non-medical service fills the gap doctors and nurses don’t cover, providing hands-on daily assistance and addressing the significant emotional and social demands of living with a long-term condition.
We are committed to making exceptional, long-term, non-medical specialized services accessible to all Philadelphians. We offer multiple payment options to ease your financial burden.
These options include:
- The Pennsylvania Caregiver Support Program
- The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (a Medicaid state program)
- Veteran benefits
- Select private insurance plans.
Proactive Crisis Prevention and Symptom Monitoring
Our caregivers view themselves as the client’s eyes, ears, and first line of defense against complications. By maintaining a constant presence, we significantly decrease the number of unnecessary doctor visits and prevent minor issues from escalating into full crises.
This proactive approach is built on three important rules:
- Early symptom detection: As the expert observer of the client’s routine, the caregiver looks for subtle changes (appetite, vitals, movement) that – if overlooked – can lead to a full crisis.
- Adherence and maintenance: To ensure a client is stable and healthy, caregivers proactively manage prevention and maintenance tasks. This includes verifying medication is taken properly and on time, ensuring adherence to the specialized diet, and providing frequent skin care, necessary for diabetic foot care.
- The communication hub: Caregivers are the liaisons between the patient, the family, and the clinical care team. They consistently log and report observations, ensuring everyone is updated with the client’s current health status in real-time.
Disease-Specific Nutritional and Dietary Adherence
Diet is a key factor in managing symptoms and slowing the progression of a chronic illness, particularly when doctors or dietitians prescribe specialized nutritional plans. Our skilled caregivers provide hands-on chronic illness support to maintain dietary compliance and stability.
To assist with dietary adherence, caregivers do the following:
- Meal planning and preparation: Aligning all prepared meals and refrigerator contents with the client’s specific dietary requirements. Examples include planning low-sodium meals for congestive heart failure or controlled carbohydrate portions for diabetes management.
- Grocery shopping and managing supplies: Caregivers manage grocery lists and purchases, ensuring only approved foods enter the home. They also organize the kitchen to make compliant food options easily accessible.
- Fluid monitoring: For conditions like Congestive Heart Failure and Kidney Disease, strict tracking of fluid intake is mandatory. Caregivers accurately track daily fluid consumption and, when necessary, motivate clients to meet hydration goals.
- Encouragement and adherence support: Caregivers recognize adhering to a strict diet can be challenging. They provide positive reinforcement and work to make meals more appealing by adapting recipes the client enjoys, all while strictly adhering to doctor’s orders.
Energy Management and Pacing Support
Clients with chronic illnesses often struggle with the debilitating “boom-and-bust” cycle of fatigue and pain. This occurs when clients overexert themselves on a “boom” day, leading to total depletion on the “bust” day.
The caregiver’s goal is to help clients maintain a consistent activity level to maximize a client’s quality of life and to avoid symptom exacerbation.
To help with pacing a client’s energy, caregivers do the following:
- Task prioritization: Working with clients to identify which tasks are essential for the day and which can be deferred, preventing the client from feeling overwhelmed or overextending themselves.
- Simplifying steps: Caregivers assist in breaking complex tasks into small, manageable steps.
- Aiding with high-drain activities: Helping with energy-intensive activities of daily living (like showering, dressing, or complex meal prep) to give clients “spare energy” for more enjoyable pursuits.
- Time chunking and breaks: Breaking the day’s schedule into short bursts of activity followed by mandatory rest periods. (Example: Wash dishes for 15 minutes, rest for half-an-hour, then wipe counters for 10 minutes).
- Emotional support and boundaries: Gently encouraging clients to rest when they are pushing past their known energy reserves, offering support to accept physical limitations.
Pain Flare Management and Comfort
Patients frequently experience unpredictable, intense episodes of pain (“flares”), common in conditions like Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Our caregivers implement non-pharmacological methods to provide immediate comfort and relief during a flare.
To provide immediate relief and support long-term coping skills, our caregivers implement the following:
- Heat and cold application: Safely apply hot packs, heating pads, or cold packs (following the established care plan) to soothe localized pain or inflammation while vigilantly monitoring the client’s skin to prevent injury.
- Gentle movement and range of motion: Assisting clients with passive or active-assisted range of motion exercises, as recommended by a physical therapist, to help alleviate pain during a flare.
- Creating a soothing atmosphere: Managing the environment by dimming lights, reducing noise (or adding calming noise like ocean waves), and ensuring a comfortable room temperature. Aromatherapy may be used if included in the care plan.
- Distraction and engagement: Employing distraction techniques to shift the client’s focus away from the pain, such as engaging in a favorite podcast or movie.
- Timely communication: Immediately document the change in condition and report the flare-up to the clinical nurse or doctor to determine if additional medication or intervention is required.
Social and Emotional Advocacy
Chronic health illnesses can lead to isolation, stigma, and depression. Providing social and emotional advocacy ensures the patient’s well-being is addressed holistically alongside their medical needs.
To make sure these needs are addressed, caregivers do the following:
Setting social boundaries: During a flare, the caregiver can politely communicate the client’s need for personal time, asking guests to leave, or postponing visits.
Educating family and friends: Gently educate the client’s social circle about the reality of the chronic condition to reduce misunderstandings and pressure on the client.
Validation of pain experience: Caregivers actively listen and validate the client’s experience by using phrases like, “I see you’re struggling right now” or “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.” This reduces the client’s feelings of isolation and self-doubt.
Reducing anxiety and fear: Provide a calm and grounding presence, helping clients practice relaxation techniques (such as breathing methods) when pain flares cause anxiety.
Voicing unmet needs: Acting as the client’s voice, advocating and accurately relaying documented needs to doctors or nurses when the client is too exhausted or overwhelmed.
Who Benefits from Chronic Disease Support?
Providing in-home chronic disease support helps shift the focus from just reacting to any flare-ups or crises to proactively managing the condition and avoiding future flare ups.
Individuals and families who benefit most from our Philadelphia home care services include:
Aging adults: Individuals with multiple chronic conditions (comorbidities) like heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis, who need support managing complex medication schedules and maintaining mobility.
Individuals with newly diagnosed conditions: People needing comprehensive support for emotional adjustment, disease education, and strategies to adjust to a new lifestyle.
Patients with high symptom burdens: Those dealing with persistent symptoms like chronic pain, profound fatigue, or severe mobility issues who benefit from specialized support for energy pacing and pain management.
Patients with rare or stigmatizing conditions: Individuals with less common or misunderstood illnesses (like IBD or certain autoimmune disorders) who need isolation reduction and coping support.
Overworked family members: Family caregivers who need relief from daily duties and education on the chronic illness details to balance caregiving with other life responsibilities.
Why Choose Impactful Home Care?
Trained and Vetted Caregiving Professionals
We ensure our caregivers have clean backgrounds and receive the required training to provide the best services.
Personalized Plans to Fit Your Needs
You have unique needs. We get your input to build customized plans based on your needs, preferences, and routines.
Medicaid-Approved Assistance
You’ll be working with a Licensed and Medicaid Approved agency.
Companions Who Are Always There
Our caregivers provide the highest quality of care through compassion and open communication. They help keep loneliness and isolation at bay.
The 3-Step Process Is Easy
We’ve simplified the process for you, so you can get the help you need. Just follow these three steps:
- Consultation: Give us a call for an evaluation. We’ll ask questions about your needs and situation.
- Care Plan: With your input, we’ll create specialized plans outlining services, schedules, goals, and preferences.
- Continuous Support: You can depend on our aides and their supervisors to provide you with consistent updates on your health, care plan, and services.
