A compassionate, clinical, and practical guide to caring for your elderly parent at home.
Written by a UK Community Staff Nurse with frontline experience in wound care, pressure ulcer prevention, medication safety, and family communication, this handbook transforms daily care into dignified routines you can trust. From washing and personal care to falls prevention, pressure-area checks, nutrition & hydration, medication management, mental wellbeing, and end-of-life conversations.
Inside, you’ll learn how to:
- Preserve dignity during personal care, build respectful routines, and run fast skin checks during wash time.
- Manage medication safely with one “source of truth,” pill organisers, and side-effect tracking.
- Make every room safer with lighting fixes, rug control, wire management, and two-rail stairs.
- Prevent pressure ulcers with turning schedules, the right cushions and mattresses, and heel protection.
- Improve nutrition and hydration with “little and often” meals, protein at every snack, and fluid habits that stick.
- Lift mood and reduce isolation with simple activities, music, stories, and gentle movement.
- Spot red flags early, know when to call GP or NHS 111, and act fast on true emergencies.
- Protect the caregiver with the S.E.L.F.-Care framework: Support, Escape, Limits, Fuel.