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She says she is not trained to do this and I should get someone who is. She doesn't want any "trouble" to occur if she does exercises with him. Previous aides all coached my husband with the exercises, which are very simple and were designed for non-professionals to guide the patient through. My husband has dementia and can't remember the exercises on his own.


I am angry that she refuses to do something that I believe is her job and that I don't have the time to do.


She is a private hire and I don't have anything in writing spelling out her duties. I'm sure I told her this was part of the job, but my husband was sick for many weeks and not strong enough to exercise. Now he's better and needs to exercise

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Do not have the aide force him to exercise...that is physical and occupational therapy job. He is a fall risk & with dementia he’s not going to cooperate anyway. Honestly, you should be lucky & thankful you have anyone to take care of him..otherwise he’d be your responsibility 24/7. I’m just being truthful..,You will have no luck getting anyone to replace her. & if someone else did show up, when they see how difficult the job is, they’ll just walk out. Stop being in denial, former genius! If he did exercises with Aides in the past, it probably was because he was stronger.
Hugs 🤗
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Unless she is a trained physical therapy aid she should not be doing physical therapy on him.
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If your husband fell, or was injured, would you blame her?   If I were in her shoes, I'd refuse as well.
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Exercises should be done with PT present. Get his doctor to Oder home PT for him.
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I was not ALLOWED to do PT of any kind with my clients. I wasn't trained to do so and I could have hurt them doing movements they couldn't do.

I could encourage walking--as much as possible, but I could not bring out the 'equipment' and get them to exercise.

We went to PT instead, which was just one more place to go for her. She loved it.
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She is frightened. She doesn’t want to risk him being hurt.

My mom has Parkinson’s disease and falls happen. PT is best when combined with OT. That is how home health does it.

Have you personally shown her these exercises? Has she ever done any type of PT before?

I doubt that you would want someone inexperienced to do this and not do it properly.

Can home health be ordered?
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I really don't blame her. She does not feel comfortable in doing them with him.

See if your doctor would order home therapy. Medicare does pay for it even if gotten before. Just needs a certain length of time between therapies.
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The agency aids I hire for my LOs are strictly companions that will take them for walks, run errands, and also do light housework and light meal prep. The agency told me the minute my LOs became a fall risk, they'd need to send out a differently trained aid at a different hourly rate. Maybe since your profile says your husband has Parkinsons your aid is concerned he is not steady enough on his feet and doesn't want him to fall on her watch, making her liable. If she has any agency experience, she'd know to avoid this problem.

I agree with funkygrandma59 about getting a written contract for this and any future hire, which will protect both of you and then you won't have problems like this one to deal with. I hope you can work it out.
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If she is not comfortable helping your husband with his exercises, then you will either have to hire someone that is(and make sure you have all duties put in writing)or you will have to help him with them yourself. An aide is usually there to assist with toileting, showering/bathing and the like. It's a physical therapist who works with someone regarding any exercises that a patient needs to do. Perhaps you need to see if your husbands insurance will cover any PT in the home. Good luck.
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