Retail Therapy
It is often a man/woman affair, but for many women and some men, retail therapy is actually a thing. That is, people really do enjoy the experience of shopping. They like to browse, they like to buy new things that they have chosen and the whole process provides genuine pleasure.
Even in the age of internet shopping, the internet still only accounts for 1 in 5 purchases. Often the internet purchase is for convenience, or because the item cannot be found anywhere else. Given a free hand and plenty of time, the experience of browsing in shops still provides real pleasure for many.
With that in mind, imagine having to give that up. To have had the simple pleasure of shopping for new things all of your life and to suddenly have that pleasure taken away. Not a wicked pleasure like drinking or smoking, or an excessively expensive pleasure like gambling, just a simple, modestly costing pleasure that is a part of normal life.
Having a sudden loss of mobility can mean the loss of that simple pleasure. A pleasure so innocent and harmless that to have it suddenly taken away seems doubly harsh and almost unjust.
Browsing on the internet is just not the same and simply having stuff delivered removes the possibility of those chance purchases - where you go into a shop for one thing and come out with something else entirely.
For older people who are not citizens of the digital age, it can be even worse. Someone else might choose for you. Not only can you not shop, but you have to accept what someone else has chosen for you.
This is why caring packages often contain support for shopping.
This is much more than a trip out to buy stuff. This allows the client to enjoy the experience of being out in the world. To touch and feel things in shops and choose the things that they want. Their own choice, in their own time and on their own terms.
There may even be opportunities on the shopping trip for cup of coffee and even a sinful cake (don't tell the doctor).
The point is that even if the client is so immobile that they can only go out in a wheelchair, they can still go out, but with an able bodied person to care for them and make the whole trip possible.
It seems like such a simple thing, but enabling such basic pleasures in a person's life really can make the difference between merely existing and living a life.
Which is the whole point of the caring profession of course. To not only make a life possible, but to make that life as full as it can realistically be.
The Editor
Author
This article has been written by the editorial team at Care Career North East
