My father is unable to get out of bed on his own. He needs a wheelchair to get around. So I now have a mobicam on my father at night and an RN and HHA that sit and watch the camera. If my dad moves around, they go to check on him. I'm not sure if this is the answer. I was hoping to hear what others are doing for their parents at night.
My great-aunt lived to 99 with all her cognitive functions completely intact but grew physically frail. Her younger sisters (in their late 80s to mid 90s) could be counted on to visit and phone during the day. In my college years, I visited 1-2 afternoons a week for family stories. Her younger brother (my paternal grandfather) died before I was born; so I enjoyed seeing her photo albums and hearing about my great-grandparents and their household with 10 children. My aunt's three daughters daughter rotated bringing or cooking a supper and spending the night with their mother from about age 97; occasionally another family member would stay a night or two when someone was on vacation or ill.
Two of her younger sisters also lived to 99 (6 of 7 girls lived to at least 93, one died in a car accident at 53, boys died at ages 63-78). One only had a single surviving son by the time she needed some overnight help, but she had provided a home for dozens of diminished capacity adults (brain injury or downs syndrome) over 4 decades and had 2 women still living with her who could help her or call someone if more help was needed than they could provide. In home help was hired for the third sister to serve a supper, assist in bedtime routine and remain in the house overnight.
So three basic in home options are:
1) family rotates to provide overnight care;
2) roommate or guest lives in to provide overnight care; or
3) hired care giver is engaged for overnight care.
Unless extraordinary financial resources are available, at some point AL or MC becomes a more affordable way to provide assistance on demand in something as close to a home like setting as possible.
"I live an hour away and drive up 3 times a week. My sister helps me the rest of the week. We do have private care and they are employees. I have used agencies and they tend to just send a warm body. Our employees are great. My dad has been recovering from brain injury and in the beginning we had an RN and an HHA with him 24/7. He is now at a point where I don't believe he needs an RN (only for meds, which I can have an employee give him) at night anymore. I do feel that he needs someone there overnight though. He has is does have much of his mind and I have approached him about assisted living but he will have no part of it. This has been the hardest thing I have every done but I love him and feel it is something I need to do for him. I am so happy to have found this forum where I can talk to people in the same situation."