Mother-in-Law needs extra help

[Badger]

Mother-In-Law is 92 and not doing so well. The care that is given in the Memory Care assisted living facilities where she is staying is not attentive enough for our satisfaction and the caregivers are often impatient. We are not happy with them and BIL who has POA etc. does not see a problem. A couple of days ago BIL involved hospice but they are not there 24/7 watching her in case of a downturn.

We would like to hire someone to stay with her so there is someone with her to insure she is eating and drinking and to call the caregivers when she needs help to get up or go to the bathroom. They would not have to be a nurse but a CNA would be sufficient.

Has anyone used a service like this who could make recommendations and provide suggestions from their experience.

Thanks
Cheers!

 

[Bamaman]

We went through 24/7 help taking care of my mother. She was in a luxury apartment/assisted living costing $2k per month including 20 meals prepared by a Dutch chef. She was burning through $110k a year after social security and other income.

In reality, we should have had her in full nursing home care. My sister ended up giving 3 years of her life hauling her to doctors visits and supervising three caregivers. And the pressure dealing with Mom affected her greatly.

Sometimes care needs to be handled by professionals.

 

[Another Reader]

The problem is that you and BIL see things differently. You could spend your own money on the extra care, but he has power of attorney. If he has a medical POA, then he can object to this and his objection will be accepted by the assisted living facility.

 

[Sarah S]

If there is an aide you like maybe you could ask if they have a friend who might be available for some private duty work at the times you want. When I was in high school / college I worked in a nursing home for a time and people did this.

We used agencies for home care for both my parents and my sister. The quality varied a lot though the more egregious deficiencies would be noted in a nursing home setting. Agencies take a big cut off the top but a good agency will at least screen employees and provide back up if the assigned person is ill. You don’t have the issues of payroll and taxes with them either

 

[gauss]

Are you in contact with your county "Area on Aging" office? They have loads of entries in their databases of local providers for all sorts of needs. No cost to work with the Area on Aging office, but you will likely need to pay for the providers as you know.

-gauss

 

[Silver]

My SIL was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers over 10 years ago, and is now in a very advanced stage. My BIL has kept her at home with the help of two agencies, the primary agency being Comfort Keepers. The other recently added agency is hospice.

Comfort Keepers - In Home Senior Care and Elder Care Services

He has been extremely pleased with Comfort Keepers because they agree to keep the same few persons assigned, and are reasonably priced. There is no reason they can't attend to someone already in a facility. I don't know if they have a Florida branch near you, but our family experience with them has been excellent.

 

[Moemg]

I also had Comfort Keepers for my Mom .They are great .My Mom did not have memory problems just physical . She was in her early 90's when we used them.

 

[gauss]

For those that were pleased with Comfort Keepers, by any chance do you know if your experience was before they were acquired by Sodexo or not?

 

[Silver]

For those that were pleased with Comfort Keepers, by any chance do you know if your experience was before they were acquired by Sodexo or not?

Sodexo acquired Comfort Keepers in 2009 I believe, and my BIL has been using them for approximately 8-9 years. He was just starting with them around that time. He has consistently verbalized a high level of satisfaction since the beginning, but there is little to no experience prior to Sodexo.

 

[lhamo]

My mom was hospitalized in mid-November after a fall, which was probably at least partly due to low 02 levels -- she was discharged back to her assisted living facility after a few days, but since the OT was worried about her tripping on the newly introduced oxygen lines we had caregivers come in overnight for the first week. We stopped using them for about 10 days when mom proved to be pretty compliant about always calling for help from the facility staff when she needed to get up, but she took a turn for the worse and we decided to call in supplemental health 24/7 for the last few days. She was on hospice after her hospital discharge and passed about 3 weeks. Bringing in hospice and getting the extra help were absolutely the right choices, and the extra care was worth every penny spent on it.

We used Griswold Home Care (https://www.griswoldhomecare.com/) -- they were among the cheaper options on the sheet the hospital gave us of local providers (we're in Seattle). They came to mom's apartment the morning after her discharge for the intake visit (I spent the first night with her), and had someone lined up for us by 8pm that night. When we decided to restart services with them they also got someone for us in just a few hours. Some of the caregivers were better than others (especially in terms of attitude) -- the last two were real angels (the one with mom when she passed was an ordained pastor from Kenya).