Full Time
About who needs care: She has become almost entirely wheelchair bound following hip surgery a couple years ago, and has an elderly spouse who can assist with a lot of her care but he is also mostly in a wheelchair now too and can no longer lift her safely, so she needs help mostly with transfers in the bathroom, into bed or a chair, and transporting to medical appointments, occasional other ADLs, She has chronic health conditions including diabetes, heart disease, poor kidney function treated with dialysis 3 days a week (but she has been missing appointments and getting worse because transport is difficult). She currently has wound care she goes to once a week, but nurses come into the home other days. She used to do physical and occupational therapy which she stopped doing that has contributed to worsening of her issues. She is not active in many hobbies anymore. Worsening vision and hearing do not help. She likes socializing with family and going out to eat, which family has accommodated periodically, but it is becoming very difficult unless she can regularly get back to dialysis, eating well, more physical strengthening, etc. If they were able to get out with assistance, they would like meeting other seniors where they could socialize. They are considering applying for a Medicaid waiver to help pay for longer term in-home care, but in the interim would like to hire some in-home help for at least a month or two most days starting late morning until late evening, and possibly live-in depending on what is available and the cost. They can make a bath and bedroom on the second floor available.
About the care needs: A people person who is calm, friendly, compassionate, and patient. They probably would need to be fairly strong for assisting with transfers. When my mother is regularly getting dialysis she gets a lot lighter as she loses fluid retention. When my mother is feeling well she is very talkative, friendly, social, so it would need to be someone equally social who does not mind that. Right now she is not very talkative. She is more fatigued, not sleeping or eating well, and confused. Even with family having been involved a lot, we all work and our father cannot handle everything himself.
Services needed include: transportation, and mobility assistance.