Four Caregiver Hours a Week Can Transform a Life

Following my Mom’s terrible fall including major injuries I shared how our family navigated her recovery. We pushed my Mom, her healthcare teams and ourselves to achieve her best outcome and, stunningly, she did. Her success inspired my short and long stories of how we did it and what it cost.

This story is inspired by her continued progress which I attribute to her spirit and also to the two, two-hour visits of care she receives during the day when she is alone. Over the past few weeks I observe my Mom is physically stronger and faster as well as cognitively brighter than before her fall. I hope our stories help you and your aging loved ones. The first step is believing you can. You can care for your aging parent; more importantly you can achieve great things with a fairly basic plan. Here is our home care plan:

1. Quantify how much help your aging parents needs (How long can they be alone, with set-up, during the day? Can they complete their morning and evening routines? How is meal prep? How are medications?
2. Adjust what you can: implement a monitoring device, discuss with doctor if meds schedule can be simplified (prescription meds once/day instead of 2-3 times), address home safety (here is the CDC’s Check for Safety resource).
3. Insert family caregivers based on what each person can consistently provide.
4. Armed with the above information, contact a home care company to add caregivers where needed (document the above needs to be specific as possible)
5. Choose a company like Cooperative, that provides both non-medical caregivers and medical home health care. Home health is a resource if your aging parent’s health declines or there is a hospitalization; using one company is the best, most seamless option.
6. Keep your aging parent’s needs list when you welcome and educate incoming caregivers about your loved one’s needs and your expectations of what will be completed each shift.
7. Be realistic in your expectations; the big picture goal is safety.

From our family to yours, Cooperative Home Care can truly help your aging parent achieve great things! Our Cooperative 360 program ensures they are qualified for, and receive, both non-medical and medical care as needed. Our one-page guide empowers you to be an educated consumer. Call our Intake Nurse today at 314-772-8585; let’s begin together.