When Jill hired home care services for her mother, she didn’t know what to expect. Her mother understood that she needed some level of care at home, that she was struggling with certain aspects of her own basic care. The problem was that neither of them talked about just how much care she required.
When the in-home care service provider showed up for the first time, Jill was there and they all sat down together and talked about the concerns that Jill had, that her mother had, and the basic process of what the caregiver would offer them.
Jill seemed comfortable knowing that this in-home care service provider had a good amount of experience, and she seemed to sense that her mother was comfortable with the situation as well. Jill left that day and figured that everything would be fine.
Within a couple of days, though, she got the sense that things were not fine. She kept trying to get her mother to talk to her, knowing that something was bothering her, but she wouldn’t open up. Finally, her mother told her that the caregiver was trying to do everything for her and that she was imposing herself on Jill’s mother, taking charge and not really listening to her about what she could or couldn’t do.
In other words, she wasn’t respecting any boundaries. Jill realized that they hadn’t established any boundaries. They both assumed that since this caregiver had experience working with elderly patients, that she would already know what was appropriate or needed without having to be told.
If you are planning on hiring home care services for yourself or for an elderly loved one, be sure that you sit down and spell out what level of care your loved one requires. Don’t just assume that the caregiver is going to know what is necessary and what is not.
There are millions of elderly individuals out there who require home care services and their needs will be as varied as themselves. If you don’t get a handle on the boundaries of this type of care, the provider may do too much, or too little and either one could become a problem for the senior in question.
The best first step is to determine exactly what your elderly loved one requires out of this type of care. Then you can sit down with the in home care service provider and establish the boundaries so that they and the elderly patient have a positive, healthy working relationship.
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