Activities of daily living like bathing, grooming, and dressing seem straightforward for most healthy adults. Yet for those battling chronic mental illnesses – such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders – self-care often slides to bottom priority without proper support. Across Maricopa County, Orion Homes runs 16 specialized group homes that provide round-the-clock care to individuals living with mental health conditions who are eager to maintain their independence.
Orion’s empathic counselors, social workers, and direct support staff coordinate evidence-based therapies, life skills programming, and supervised autonomy so individuals can self-govern confidently from the comfort of home-like environments. For residents needing help with bathing and hygiene, Orion’s compassionate teams lend hands-on assistance while respecting dignity.
Why Schizophrenia Patients Often Struggle With Self-Care
Coping with disorganized thinking, hallucinations, delusions, flattened affect, and volatility leaves little mental bandwidth for mundane daily tasks – much less attempting good hygiene. Motivation plummets further due to depression and social withdrawal symptoms. Without interventions, individuals “choose” to stay in soiled clothing and skip showers for days or weeks. Yet Orion teams provide that external support navigating activities of daily living through:
- Hands-On Caregiving: Residents have access to total assistance with bathing, shaving, brushing teeth, changing clothes, managing laundry, or cleaning private bedrooms in a dignified manner. Caregivers verbally coach and cue if residents demonstrate a willingness to attempt self-care tasks.
- Medication Assistance: Staff distributes daily medications on schedule. For people living with psychosis, the difference between a good day and a bad one often comes down to one thing: how well they’re able to keep their symptoms under control.
- Transportation: Accessing community mental health resources depends on reliable transportation to psychiatric providers and counselors. Orion schedules and transports residents directly to offsite appointments.
- Routine Wellness Checks: Teams continually check in on residents to redirect fixations, provide meals if forgotten, administer first aid, and re-engage individuals in basic self-care through validation and nurturing encouragement.
Orion Homes is the solid foundation Peoria residents with chronic mental health challenges need to rebuild their lives on. Orion’s tailored group homes promote functional independence rather than unchecked deterioration prior to higher levels of care. To tour an Orion Home specializing in schizophrenia support or inquire about current openings, please get in touch today.