Anyone hire a caregiver for elderly parent?

[gsganzer]

Thanks all. We've been using a caregiver for 5 hours/day, 5 days a week. If we direct hired this other lady, it would be the same scenario for now. My mom's mostly self sufficient, but we need someone to watch her when we're at work during the day. I've already been dealing with the financial security issue, with the previous caregivers. Part of what's also driving this is that the current agency person is getting ready to move, so we'd yet again get a new person and we haven't always had a good experience/fit. I'm mainly concerned about the safety and liability issues if we paid her direct. Money isn't a factor in any of this, just quality,safety and liability. We'll talk with this lady some more.

 

[rgr33]

After my mom passed, we got Dad a live in caregiver to take care of the house and him. All the caregivers we hired had excellent references, nonetheless about half of them were thieves, ranging from toilet paper to a valuable coin collection. A big percentage of them spent more time on the phone and computer than they did performing their duties. About 25% of them were excellent, but eventually burned out or eventually retired.

He is now in a retirement home, receiving much better care, and enjoys the company of other residents. There is always something going on to entertain the residents. We regret not making the move earlier, we thought at the time, he would be happier in his own home.

 

[dmccarty]

Has anyone directly contracted an individual to act as a caregiver for an elderly parent?...
Has anyone else been down this path? ...

I have not but family members have and we are now thinking about my parents.

Google is your friend in this case. Google this persons name and start digging. Check out criminal history as well. Your state should have a way to check for at least convictions over the internet but you might have to go to the court house to check for arrests. The problem is that arrests in other states might not show up...

This is a job position and I would treat it as such. As for previous addresses, previous places of work and references. VERIFY EVERY one of these. When talking to the references, ask them if they know anyone that might have been employed by or worked with the person. DIG.

Google will sometimes turn up the most interesting connections. In this day and age, the person might be on LinkedIn which can give you more insight on the person. Facebook is a resource as well.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I am wrestling with this over my 80 year old Mother. I have heard horror stories from Elderly customers about being robbed by care givers. Face it. We live in a world where many only think of themselves. And having a job where you may have to wipe someone elses behind is not usually a first choice but often the only employment available. For whatever reason, many of these caregivers are also on drugs, from what I have heard.

My Mom wants to stay at home.

From my earliest memory, my granny said she would NEVER go into a retirement home. When it became time to go, I swear she just decided to die at home. She got her wish. She never went into a care home.

My grandfather was in various care facilities and had valuables and clothes stolen. It was pretty constant too.

My grandmother is in a home but we have a relative nearby who is VERY involved in the home and there everyday to check on things. Even then, stuff has been stolen. We think some things might have been thrown away by my grandmother, but given the value of the things that have disappeared, it makes me go hmmm.

The relative has gone over at night and seen staff laying down on couches watching TV and playing on phones when they were supposed to be working. The manager that used to run the place was pretty good but she got fired under some odd circumstances. :confused3: Seems like there might have been some shady things going on at a higher level in the company but we don't know for sure.

Food quality SUCKS. This was and is a constant battle with the home. They try but the problem is that the care givers are younger and are used to eating food the residents never ate since it did not exist. For instance chicken nuggets. The residents don't have a clue as to what it is so they won't eat it. The residents want/need food they grew up with but they are not always getting it.

The elderly are easy prey. We have had family members steal from their parents. But there are certainly thefts in the care homes as well.

Our county does not have much crime, much less murders but a few years ago a "care giver" killed one lady and seriously injured a second. The lady that was killed had figured out that the "care giver" was stealing her money. Instead of calling the sheriff she and her friend decided to confront the thief. The obviously let the thief know that they knew about the theft(s) because the "care giver" wrote a long note on how she was going to kill the women and what items she needed to do so. :shocked: The "care giver" beat the women, I think with a bat, and killed the one lady and seriously injured the other. I think the injured lady died quite some time, many months if not a few years, after the attack and they went back and charged the "care giver" with a second murder.

The sad fact is that with our aging population we need good elderly care but good care is expensive. Very expensive. And many/most people do not have the means to get that kind of care.

I plan on being like Granny. :thumbsup::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[rox]

for my mother for around 4 years. My mom was in (until 2 days ago) a senior citizen apartment that provided meals and cleaning but no care giving. What I did was hire two, made one a supervisor, she was a very talented and competent person and she supervised the full time care-giver. I prefer to privately hire as it makes the care-giver more eager to please. If you hire an agency, if you don't like the person they send the agency just sends them off to another job. However when the person works directly for you, you are their boss not the agency, I feel you get better care this way. My mother had 24/7 care for 3 years in addition to the supervising care-giver and the cost was not low cost either.

It's a long story so I will spare you the details but my brother just moved my mother into a really nice nursing home at a cost of $11,000 per month. Between the rent on the senior apartment and the caregivers my mom was spending just over $9,000 a month, there was no need to put her in a nursing home where she can hit that call button and wait for someone to come to her, she had personal 24 hour care, I'm upset about it as you may have guessed.

 

[3Ts]

I don't even understand family not taking care of family!! And yeaaa, it's a lot of work and takes up a lot of your time and yeaaa, I know folks have a thousand excuses why THEY can't do it!!

Key word "excuses"!!

I agree. But, at the same time, I also know people who have 1) alienated those around them including family, 2) refused to have any kind of caregiver assistance, and 3) withdrawn from society and want to be a hermit.

 

[Clint S]

I agree. But, at the same time, I also know people who have 1) alienated those around them including family, 2) refused to have any kind of caregiver assistance, and 3) withdrawn from society and want to be a hermit.

I also agree, we should take care of family, but there comes a time when you may not be able to. Do I quit my job and lose my house to take care of my father. Do I let my health suffer?? It's a tough spot to be in and I have been there.

 

[rox]

I also agree, we should take care of family, but there comes a time when you may not be able to. Do I quit my job and lose my house to take care of my father. Do I let my health suffer?? It's a tough spot to be in and I have been there.

I agree with Clint. If I was living in the United States I would have taken my mother in my home. But I'm not, so I can't. The other thing is, not all family members throughout their lives were particularly kind loving family members, so kind of, what goes around comes around so to speak.

My kids tease me and say, "Watch out, remember I will be picking out your nursing home one day." I was blessed with wonderful generous loving parents and I could have taken care of my mother (with help I would have had to bring in a caregiver as it takes 2 ppl to get my mother into & out of bed and into and out of her lift chair). I was the only one out of four kids who could have taken care of my mother.

 

[mark02tj]

My other half works in the senior care industry and I've been around that industry for a lot of years. There are pros and cons of everything. In spite of all of the screening that they try to do at different facilities/communities bad apples do get through. Theft can range from money to jewelry to snacks and candy to toilet paper and household supplies. "Care givers" hanging out in apartments/rooms on their phones is not uncommon, unfortunately.

As far as in-home care goes, there have been some good points about liability issues, etc. with direct hiring, but if I was looking for someone for in-home care, I'd probably go direct hire instead of an agency. That way you can determine who you want instead of the agency sending over any of of their "quality, pre-screened employees." I think that the personal relationship of the direct hire arrangement would go a long way to mitigate theft and other issues.

My parents have been in some sort of care community for four years now. It started out living "independently" in a senior community in a stand alone house. From there it went to an assisted living community in an apartment building. That was actually the best arrangement as it kept them from driving and surrounded them with other residents their own age. Dad would never admit it, but he loved going to meals and hanging out. Due to some restrictions in the level of care the assisted living place could provide, we moved them to a memory care community which was a disaster. Due to the incompetence of the staff and management of that place, my Mom almost died. They are now in a skilled nursing place which is pretty good.

If your loved ones were in the military at any time that the US was involved in armed conflict - regardless of whether or not they saw "action", look at the VA for "aid and assistance" funding. There are some restrictions, but it could be a way to bring in a couple thousand bucks a month to help defer costs. It is a long and tedious process to apply, so be prepared.

Another thing to look at is whether or not the community/facility that you choose is an "age in place" facility. This means that regardless of their deteriorating condition, they won't have to move to a skilled care facility. That's what happened with the assisted living community my folks were in - their license (and policies) required that a resident couldn't be more than a "1 person transfer". In other words, if it took 2 aides to get your loved on out of bed or on the toilet, they couldn't keep you. An age in place facility would accommodate you in that area even though they may still be "assisted living" as opposed to "skilled nursing".

With regards to money, if you think that you're going to run out at some point, it's best to find the best facility that you can that will eventually accept Medicaid (not Medicare - they don't pay for long term care). These places have a limited number of Medicaid beds, so it's best to be "private pay" and then they'll transfer you over to Medicaid when the time comes. But, for the nicer places, it's harder to just come in off the street needing a Medicaid bed.

Sweetie's sister's mother in law had an in-home, direct hire aide that was wonderful. They live in a small town and this was a mom who took care of a couple of older ladies while her kids were in school. This is kind of weird, but both the mother in law and the other lady this woman was taking care of died the same day!! No, nothing suspicious or unexpected about either death - but just an odd coincidence.

Good luck to OP trying to decide what to do. Just remember, do the best you can and don't let ANYONE make you feel guilty about any of the decisions that you make. As long as you're doing your best, you should sleep well at night. This is a tremendously difficult and stressful thing to go through. As you talk to your friends, you'll find that many people are in the same situation.

 

[dmccarty]

I also agree, we should take care of family, but there comes a time when you may not be able to. Do I quit my job and lose my house to take care of my father. Do I let my health suffer?? It's a tough spot to be in and I have been there.

Exactly. One of my neighbors took care of his demented wife. This was before we had built our house so I would only see him every few months. I would be working almost every weekend on our place but he could only escape from caring for his wife from time to time. And it was an escape. I could see him age and age as time went on. It was an horrible burden for him to endure. Eventually his wife died and you could see the weight lift off of him. He eventually remarried to a woman who had taken care of her sick husband and they were able to have some fun before life hit them again.

There is simply now way he could have cared of his wife and had even a part time job. Not possible.

We know someone our age who is taking care of her demented father. She is a full time care giver. Again, there is no way she can have even a part time job and care for her father. She is lucky in that the family can afford to have her care for her father and she is able to take him to an adult day care so she can get some rest and do chores. She really has no life other than caring for her father. It is a huge burden. I would prefer to be dead than place that burden like that on a family member.

Later,
Dan