Does anyone else experience rude treatment from your loved one's helper?

In addition to the very real possibilities indicated above, I can also think of the following:
The loved one is very needy for attention, and plays a victim to the caregiver by fabricating a relationship of neglect and abuse by his family. An untrained and inexperienced caregiver with her own psychological agenda assumes the role of savior angel to the loved one, and forms inappropriate and untrue judgements of the loved one's family, and openly expresses hostility and disdain for them.

Moms caregiver, from an agency, told me very rudely "I work for your mother, not you". Funny, how when mom was running low on funds, this caregiver didn't mind taking a check from me on my own personal account. My experience with a paid caregiver was horrendous. Moms gone now. but my husband or i ever find ourselves in need of help, i hope i NEVER have to hire someone again. I was in constant contact with my mom, we lived a few miles apart, talked to her or saw her every day and still my mom befriended this woman and to this day I still don't know what all went on. As I always say, there are great paid caregivers out there and I'm here to tell you from personal experience there are some real "rats" too.

Unfortunately, I think this will be a constant problem.....for those who need care, AND for those in the caregiving industry who are really trying to be upstanding. Sooo many people have flooded this field because it takes so little to "qualify" for the job, consequently, you have caregivers who really do not have any specialized training in the field. AND it doesn't help that Home Healthcare agencies are completely UNregulated by any branch of authority that would hold them to a standard of accountability. So many unemployed can easily get hired at these agencies, or hire themselves out privately for $$$$ under the table, that it's downright scary who could be walking into the homes of our elderly. Do not EVER assume that just because you've hired someone through an agency that they know what they are doing. Only time will tell that. I do speak from experience, as my in-laws have to have round the clock care for my father-in-law who is completely paralyzed on one side as the result of a stroke, and who also suffers moderate dementia. The last agency they hired sent caregivers that we now know, ended up working together as a team to rob valuables out of the house when my mother-in-law would go out to her own doctor's appts. or grocery shopping. Even though police reports were filed and we immediately dropped that agency, no arrests were ever made and none of their belongings have been found or returned. We believe they got in "good" with my father-in-law and got him to divulge the secrets of where all the valuables were hidden around the home, took them while mother-in-law would be out of the house, knowing she would not immediately be checking these spots on a daily basis, and then dear father-in-law, because of his dementia would never remember anything! (And even if he did.....who would believe a man with dementia would know what he was talking about?)

I have racked my brain to try to find a *real* solution to the caregiver (integrity) issue. I still don't have any good answers. : ( It just seems that every "solution" is only a trade-off that leads to some other kind of problem.

OMG yet again another pitfall for those needing help taking care of their loved ones. I can tell you of one incident I had non related to my mother. I met a woman through a friend of mine she was a CNA. She was in my apt and the next day, I couldn't find my necklace; I was invited to her house for dinner and just let it go. We were at the table and she had these lovely cut glass wine glasses, and I said they were lovely. She smiled and said she took them off the woman she takes care of because she was being so bad that day. I was horrified. I got up and walked out and never spoke to her again. People will take advantage of others because they think in some perverse way they are entitled. I am sure that there are good carers out there but there are a lot that are not and only looking to take advantage. I don't know what the solution is other than to ask around, I hear there is Angies List, never went on it but maybe it would be helpful.

This list is so great, it is wonderful to hear the different stories - it works so well to have them all organized by topic! On this issue. So many feelings for me, for I was a loving, caring, attentive, respectful caregiver for elders - and I usually found one or two that I really liked, and worked with them over 3-4 years, my last one 7. They often very old (mid 90s +), independent women, and men - who took no mood medications, but needed help not only with a few healthcare issues, but were also mobile and valued help with ways to cope with motivation and hope through the years of their declining abilities - when their children by then were also old. There was one daughter who was 85, and would leave her nursing home once a year, to travel to visit her mother in her assisted living facility where she received 24 hour care at 108 - daughter slept in her spare bed when she came.

On the topic. Working for an agency, I have found that most caregivers try to bring kindness and care, and each one has their different ways of pacing themselves, and all try to deal with the patient's moods that can be difficult as the person ages and they lose their memory and imagine they can do a lot more than they can, or have the same conversation 40 times. The caregiver gets to know the patient, and sometimes I have found it very difficult to later shift gears, when a family relative arrives, for they have their own memories of the person, their own understandings, and these are often outdated. I learned most of my skills in dealing with balance and mobility, and also belligerence and memory issues, from my years of responsibility for my youngest brother with brain injury, not from formal nurses aide training. I found my flexibility an asset, not a detriment, for I knew to watch for adjacent issues when one issue was resolved, and handle each one promptly, which I knew reassured my brother - and later, my patients. But it is a thankless job, when the elder's mind deteriorates, and family, long distant, come back on the scene, and if the elder has developed alzheimers and forgets the caregiver and wants above all, to please the daughter - one finds oneself ignored. I learned to use the pt's energy and planning for any parts of mobility that they can, which I believe retains their mental abilility and sense of competence, but family arrrived and called my agency to complain because I was not following behind him with my hand on his belt. I found my what had evolved over years as my real work ignored by my agency, who only hired carers to do set list of nursing aide tasks, not to provide any other reassurance, companionship, unique friendship which can develop - all that is not seen as part of the job.

I don't know the solution, but I see the issues as a major gap in healthcare services, for both family and aides could use some training in how to communicate with each other, so that you don't have some charismatic aides doing all the communicating with family, or just the agency - when the real help and healing and reassurance are coming from someone left invisible.

Sorry - better focus my reply above, more explicitly to the topic. My company was called a few times, with reports of my rudeness. I found it so demoralizing because every time, I did not know how to explain my perspective, to outside observers, and it was horrible, that the family was encouraged to deal with the agency, not the aide (me) directly, which could have resolved issues. The family who complained that I was not walking behind, holding the man's belt - added a few other items, and I was reprimanded, after agreeing to go over there on Thanksgiving, because no other carers could be found. I noted they had the wrong size seat on the toilet, which was the cause of chronic accidents, and they found the input valuable, but when the daughter later arrived and heard of my coments, she called and said I was opinionated. My boss agreed and said she would put these things in my file - and it was not until a few months later, that my boss told me (in our rare conversations) that this family had rejected every carer they sent, and was very difficult to deal with. Or another family where a daughter cared for her father at home, and had a strict list of how to deal with the father, including how to get him out of bed, oversee, etc, a huge list. I appreciated the structure and input, but she had no idea how to hold back some impatience, and allow me to add my expertise related to mobility, and gave me instructions just before I was about to do them - when I showed some frustration, as I was concentrating very attentively, to watch her father, make sure there were no risks spots, she would correct me or instruct, and when I showed momentary frustration, she called my company and complained. Another time, I supervised a pt in a hospital setting, and worked my tail off making sure that every wish was well met, and she fell asleep - but the pt in the next bed had diarreah, and had been operated on that day, and you can imagine the cries for help - and after chasing down hospital aides to help her get up to the commode 4 times, reassuring her while she waited, trying to keep all calm so my pt could sleep, I looked exasperated, and that was also reported to my company! So, I give those examples to note that direct care demands attention and resourcefulness, and though there are some aides, like those described, who find their own ways of getting paid (!) - that is terrible, it is just that the subtle ways aides find to pace themselves and do their best, are not visible to outsiders, even other healthcare officials, while the list of frustrations with aides can be long. I have no problem with someone having a nap, even a male - as long as they are able to hear the pt clearly, use a baby monitor if it is not in the same room, and they see it as their role to jump to alert attention, at any sound.

Rudeness is not an acceptable behavior on the part of the caregiver to the family. Period. It indicates a lack of respect and indifference and may signal an inappropriate attempt to align themselves with the patient in order to curry favors from an unsuspecting and emotionally vulnerable person. Is it frequent? Blatant? Was it an accidental event for which an apology was immediately forthcoming? If not, it is then likely to be an escalating problem: if they can get away with small indiscretions in behavior, the probability is that they may increase.

Have you quietly and clearly addressed the problem with the caregiver, not in a confrontational manner, but in a questioning way in order to clear the air? Your father may have really poisoned the waters, so speak, but qualified caregivers usually understand family dynamics and if present family members are loving, attentive and respectful to the parent they get treated by the caregiver in kind. Are you going in being bossy and commanding? Even if just out of frustration and concern? That will certainly confirm any bad stories Dad may have said, even if they were not true.

You are clearly the employer if writing the check even if Dad lives independently. If not, are you the legal guardian for your father? Contact the resource where you found this person and get them to address this problem immediately. If this is not successful I would get them replaced. They may "sweetie pie" your Dad in from of you, but heaven only knows what goes on in your absence. I am quite fond of the "nanny cams" when there is no one at home to watch just what happens. If the caregiver is wonderful and a jerk to you, then so be it. Deal with it. if the caregiver is manipulating Dad in your absence, then you need to act to remove her immediately.

Look at the evidence: is he clean, eating, any unusual bruises on his body, does he seem overly exhausted when she has been there? or, he the opposite of all these things, seems well and content and the nurse is just witchy to you? The bottom line may be that she is great with Dad and hates you, so suck it up.

You need more data to decide.

JOYCE:

Main visiting nurse might be treating you like some sort of "fifth wheel intruder," but the bottom line is that you don't have to take that kind of treatment. Doesn't matter whom, doesn't matter when, doesn't matter where. Make that clear to her.

At one time I was the caregiver. I was treated rudely by the family. I was trying my very best to take good care of their loved one and that was not good enough. So it happens on both sides. Finally I had to quit, it was an impossible situation.

I am a caregiver with Visiting Angels and have worked for our local agency for two years. I can honestly tell you that each aide hired must undergo background check and drug screening on a regular basis. We have monthly in-service covering a range of issues that face our clients and us as caregivers. We are all certified in demintia care. What I have read shocks and saddens me as I am sure it is all very true. Might I suggest that families look for a reputable agency such as Visiting Angel's.
BBB, Angie's list and I am appalled at what I have read, I can tell you that