If you are stressing yourself out and struggling to keep up with your elderly parent’s needs, live-in care can be a solution. It can be set up quickly, providing peace of mind and assurance for individuals recovering from an illness or injury, or for those who are experiencing a change in condition that requires someone to be available to help at any time of the day.
Important questions for families to ask
- What do I need help with?
- How much help do I need?
- How often do I need help – how many days per week and how many hours?
The answers to these questions are driven by the needs and preferences of the client, the amount and level of care the family feels comfortable with, financial considerations, and more.
Many families find that after researching the options (including moving to a retirement or assisted living facility), the best option is live-in care. This service is most appropriate when the client does not want to move and a caregiver is required around the clock. A typical live-in client may be dealing with multiple health issues, have difficulty with activities of daily living, may be receiving home health or hospice services, or simply want the security of knowing that there is a trained responsible person in the house at all times.
Live-in Care can take different forms
Typically an agency will rotate 2 caregivers who will cover the 7 days. Caregivers must be allowed to sleep at night so clients who are up several times during the night may require a 2nd caregiver to remain awake while the 1st caregiver sleeps.
Recent regulatory changes concerning certain exemptions to Federal wage and hour rules have greatly increased the complexity and costs of providing live-in care. As a result, many home care agencies have decided they will not be providing this service any longer and others have raised their rates considerably.
In order to continue providing affordable live-in care, agencies will now have to have more robust regulatory and scheduling oversight plus a large staff of live-in caregivers who can work with flexible scheduling.
Family Resource Home Care have trained caregivers who provide live-in care and dedicated supervisory staff for our live-in program. We are and will remain committed to providing quality and affordable care to all our live-in clients.
