Find Senior Care (City or Zip)
Join Now Log In
L
littlemisskitty Asked December 2014

Can hired home agency cause you to lose the right to care for your loved one?

Ok confusing question but the bottom line is, we have an agency we work with to have a few hours of help in the week. The agencies require various people to come into the house to check out grandma. We are ok with that but when the physical therapists, nurses and occupational therapists come into the house, they always make suggestions. Now some are helpful so I'm not say all isn't but others are just plain expensive and impractical. Our current occupational therapist handed us a catalog telling us that instead of buying used equipment or borrowing it, we should go out and buy everything again brand new. That I didn't consider helpful and in fact made me as well as my family feel that nothing we had was good enough. When others have come in stating various grab bars are helpful, that we needed to cut the tub to make it so she wasn't climbing in, that we needed two raised toilet seats so one can be placed in her bedroom near her bed as a port-a-potty so she wasn't walking so far at night, buying two lift chairs in each of the rooms she hangs out with in us, building a ramp on the outside of the house, redoing the outside steps to make the garage more accessible by having smaller steps, making transitions between carpet and hard wood floors bright colors so they are easier to see, moving the sink out of her bathroom and into her bedroom so she doesn't slip when using it, getting her a hospital bed so she is more comfortable (which didn't work as now my mom and I during our nighttime shifts end up sleeping in it since she's insisting on sleeping in her lift chair) and who knows what other changes have been made throughout the years.

My question is this though, when working with a paid agency who comes in and visits and with her social workers, are they able to go back and make complaints to someone that might result in us losing the ability to keep grandma in the house? Everytime someone complains or makes a comment we are so afraid they are going to turn us into someone who might make us lose the ability to keep grandma home. Is this possible? Has anyone dealt with this? We do the best we can and make any and all changes we can make to help her out but it appears to others this is still not enough. There is always better and more expensive equipment that should be bought and things we apparently are not doing right...

littlemisskitty Dec 2014
Well we moved the sink to the bedroom because her bathroom was tiny. When we moved into the house, it was just meant for one family and she was with us and in Maryland where we lived before we lived in a split foyer house. We made the basement into her living space when she moved in to give her 'space.' In this house in CT, it was all together and we were already afraid of her doing stairs so we gave her 'half' the house. One side was a living room and the other was a family room. We turned the family room into a small living room and a small bedroom with two small closets. Then we turned her 1/2 bath into a full bathroom so the first floor would have a full bathroom for her. It made the bathroom small and cramped so as we noticed she needed more room, one of the occupational therapists noticed it too and suggested we remove the sink and stick it outside the bathroom so that it could still be used but it wouldn't be in the way of her transferring with her walker from the toilet to the bathtub. We also removed her door as it was causing an issue with getting from the bathroom to the sink. Those are things we didn't mind changing. The smaller steps, my brother-in-law came and did them for us so again the change wasn't to terrible but the wood wasn't exactly cheap. The ramp is going to cost a lot more but unfortunately she is taking a lot of falls lately so even having it step up so that from an EMT point of view, she could be taken out safely on a stretcher or so we can wheel her inside of necessary, so while it's expensive not the end of the world. Now rebuying equipment in my eyes is nuts. Her walker is perfect and she loves it. She is used to it and it's not a simple grey one...this is a blue one with a seat and we bought a little undercarriage tray for it and a cup holder to make it what she needed. We got the lift chairs and really she only uses it for putting her feet up but since she has swollen ankles it's nice to have plus sometimes she will remember how to use the remote where now she wouldn't have the strength to do the crank on her old chairs. I'm just curious as to how much power others who enter the room have. We have helped her by making changes in every way we can. She's never alone as we are with her constantly. My mom and I take turns even sleeping downstairs with her so she is really never alone. My mom is working at home and I have a part time schedule to relieve her so she can do her work. I have a video monitor that we set up for me to even go in the next room to do dishes or so we can go to the bathroom and still see her constantly.

I was just making sure that people who enter the room cannot make any decisions about if she stays or if she goes.

pamstegma Dec 2014
Well they get paid to make suggestions, so they are doing their job. As far as intervening? No they won't, unless Gma has repeated injuries or trips to the ER. For us, it was Gma herself who refused any changes at all to her house, so she kept falling down and getting hurt. We were the ones who talked her into trying Assisted Living. She still fell there, but at least there was someone with her 24/7 to call 911.

ADVERTISEMENT


JessieBelle Dec 2014
Support rails and grab bars are excellent ideas. Non-trip flooring is an excellent idea. If you have a tub she has to climb in, a transfer bench is a good idea. A safety frame on the toilet and a bedside potty that can be moved around is a good idea. Some of the other things are just conveniences. I mean, like, really -- a sink in the bedroom Who has that?

If you are like me, I know the things my mother has trouble with and what works okay. For example, if a parent never leaves the house, what use is a ramp or redesigning the steps. Or if they don't have trouble with the steps, then why change? Before I did all the expensive modifications they suggested, I would just move my mother to a facility. That sounded like a whole lot of expensive changes.

Summermyst Dec 2014
I would see if there is a red cross in your area they have been super helpful to us. And I would guess it depends on the area your in but in BC where I'm at they would not even let him home till we did major upgrades. But only what was needed, your right is always bigger and better but used should be fine and basic needs should be enough.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ask a Question

Subscribe to
Our Newsletter