How difficult is it to find a good home health aide?
My father is 86 years old, fairly severe Alzheimer's. He remembers almost nothing, he is very agitated and even a little violent (screaming, striking, pinching caregivers) about 25% of the time. He has urinary incontinence while sleeping. Due to a broken hip last year he cannot walk.
Medicaid will pay for an aide 12 hours a day. I would like to pay the aide another $50 to stay overnight as well. There will of course need to be two different aides so that the primary aide has a day or two off each week.
I except the aide to keep my father safe, fed, clean, comfortable, etc while also being an excellent housekeeper who will keep the apartment spick and span. I don't want to hire a housekeeper on top of the aide since the aide will have a couple of hours of downtime daily when dad naps.
This is in Brooklyn, NY by the way.
Do you think this is reasonable? Will it be difficult to find the right people? Any advice?
Thank you!
Are you having trouble keeping an Internet connection?
I think there's more going on here but I don't know what it is. Maybe the agency for some reason doesn't want to deal with you. Maybe the agency isn't a very good one.
Perhaps you should try a different agency. That's what I would do.
Why do you feel "height and weight proportionate" is required, and why the age requirement?
Your profile states you're caring for someone with arthritis; how is this affected by someone who would meet your standards, which I consider to be especially rigid in the age category.
And depending on how the VA structures payment, if you're considered the employer, your standards are discriminatory.
So far the agencies have sent me a 45 year old woman who couldn't hear me standing next to me. Then they sent an 80 year old woman. I'm seventy. The eighty year old almost passed out because it was 93 degrees in my home. I don't have central air right now. She told me she couldn't come back because it was to hot. I agreed with her. Then they sent a woman who was close to five hundred pounds. She was the most disgusting looking person I had ever been that close to. She was barely able to navigate her way through my home It has narrow walkways and is cluttered with furniture, chairs, and other stuff. I was afraid she would stumble, hurting herself and destroying things in my home. I refused all three of them. The agency tells me that they are the only ones available because everyone else in on vacation. I am very clear of mind, but I have arthritis among other ailments, and can't walk well, or stoop and bend. That's why I am asking for someone whose height and weight is proportionate according to the charts in the doctors office. Why would anyone other than morbidly obese people, old, people, or deaf people have a problem with my simple requests?
Why do you feel "height and weight proportionate" is required, and why the age requirement?
Your profile states you're caring for someone with arthritis; how is this affected by someone who would meet your standards, which I consider to be especially rigid in the age category.
And depending on how the VA structures payment, if you're considered the employer, your standards are discriminatory.
He only pretended to be to get answers. He's the aide, and had his own agenda in disguising his identity.
I made it very clear to my employers that either i take very good care of your baby and do very little housework OR i do all your housework and neglect your baby? do you really need a reality check if i hired a carer and my house was spic and span i would have to ask the question of how well my dad was being cared for? I think your dad needs to be in a home and looked after by professionals not some immigrants who just want a job and will work for peanuts pay peanuts and get monkeys. Your dads care should be paramount and if you cant afford proper care then either care for him yourself or have him get the care he deserves in a professional enviroment.
Here in Ireland its $150 dollars a night for cargivers for als patients and well deserved if you ask me! Maybe you should spend sometime with these cargivers even for one day to see just how hard it is and maybe you wont be so cheap!
And again I just don't get it. What is the huge difference if I am the child or I am the aide and I will pass this on to the child?
It's not like I'm pretending to be doctor and giving all kinds of bogus advice or something. Or I'm pretending to have a fatal illness and making a my own website and really I'm healthy.
"So I started this particular case two weeks ago and I was told two days ago that today, Sunday, will be my last day."
Linda, perhaps it is his attitude that made this only a 2 week job.
What difference does it make if the child or the aide posted this question? I passed the answer on to the child.
Seriously, is this a forum about dementia or by people who are demented?
And if you think that feedback from a forum on which you posted false inforomation is sufficient to use with a family which hired you to care for their father, you should think again, especially why you're even in this field.
I can't imagine you would ever get any decent references, even if you didn't want them, after telling a family you posted about their situation on a public forum. You revealed personal information which you had no right to disclose. No only did you not respect theirs and their father's privacy, you violated the TOS of this site as well.
Go troll elsewhere.
To anyone who hasn't read the entire thread, don't bother to respond to the OP. He isn't who he claimed to be and this whole excursion was a waste of our time.
Honestly you need a different plan.
Everything I've written is precisely accurate, except he is my patient not my father.
As far as I know spontaneous hip fractures are unheard of for males.
"I am caring for my father, living at home and the primary ailment is alzheimer's / dementia."
Now you've admitted that's false.
You've also violated the TOS, which provide in part:
"You may not post on the Site any content which (a) is libelous, false, defamatory, ...
(c) violates the rights of others, such as content which ... violates any right of privacy or publicity; or (d) otherwise violates any applicable law ... You may not impersonate any person or entity; falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity. "
https://www.agingcare.com/termsofuse.htm
Maybe you should rehink your whole approach to this profession as well as posting on a public forum.
You know, if you wanted opinions on your situation and whether or not it was normal, you could have just stated so. It wasn't necessary to be so dishonest with us.
I thought there was something very odd that a man who had fallen no longer walks. You mentioned nothing about post fall PT which I also found peculiar.
I have read of spontaneous fractures due to having taken Fosamax.
And regardless what you think may have happened to cause the fracture, I also find it inappropriate to speculate that an aide said nothing after a client fell. You impugn the integrity of someone you don't even know and even suggest the daughters have mental issues.
But the situation which I am describing is exactly what his two daughters, who have taken charge of his care in recent years, are doing. I am not exaggerating one single word.
I'm American by the way, 53, divorced, former computer programmer who was unemployed for three years thanks to the Great Recession. I went into home health care a year and a half ago just to survive. I discovered that I really enjoy it. I love to directly, personally help people. I actually saved a patient's life once when he was having symptoms of a heart attack. What a thrill!
So I started this particular case two weeks ago and I was told two days ago that today, Sunday, will be my last day. Last Thursday I took a day off to visit my kids (being penniless didn't help my marriage btw) so the agency sent a 57 year old Ukrainian man as a sub. He is very nice and he straightened up the living room without being asked which I think scored huge points with the daughters. They offered him the job; at first he refused but apparently his wife pressured him to agree. He arrives 8:00 am tomorrow.
Anyway, since I am still a little new in this, I've started wondering: Is this situation normal??? Does this make sense??? My instinct is that the daughters have a few mental problems of their own.
Incidentally, he was walking until last November. Then he broke his hip. The children "don't know" how it broke and think it may have been spontaneous. Since it had already begun healing the doctors could not operate. His hip healed crookedly and he cannot walk or stand without pain even with a walker. Personally, I think he fell while with an aide and the aide just said nothing.