Matching a Caregiver

At Visiting Angels there is never a dull moment and everyday can be a new adventure or challenge depending on how you want to look at it.

Recently we had the opportunity to experience something which had a happy ending for everyone. The story began with a meeting with the daughter who was experiencing a situation with her Mom and Dad where Mom was experiencing Dementia and it was going into an advanced stage of the disease. Since myself and Visiting Angels caregivers are trained in working with individuals with Dementia we were not alarmed, but this situation was unique because the Mom did not recognize her Dad and Dad had been the sole caregiver for his wife and was having difficulty acknowledging the fact his wife did not know who he was.  He was “that man who’s always here” according to his wife. Plus to make matters worse her Dad was mentally worn out and to complicate things was struggling with Arthritis and depended on a walker to navigate. The mother also believed “People” had moved into the home and was taking thing and using her clothes.  The mother did not trust anyone because of “These People”.

At Visiting Angels our number 1 priority is giving the best care possible for everyone involved and in this case it was both the Mom and the Dad. So, interviewing the Mother and receiving her personality download we began the search for the perfect caregiver. Our Schedulers found a spunky petite little caregiver who was 5 ft tall in her late 60’s to early 70’s.  With the caregiver set in place we arranged a “Meet and Greet” with the family.  As usual there was anxiety in the air when we arrived at the home.  The daughter along with a sister-in-law for reinforcement met us at the door.  We introduced the caregiver to the family and after seeing things were going smoothly, we left the caregiver with the family.  A few days later we received a call from the daughter who wanted to share with us an experience they had on the first day of care.  The daughter and sister-in-law were in another room where they could hear the caregiver and their Mother having a conversation.  All of a sudden, their Mother laughed because of something the caregiver had said.  The daughter and sister-in-law looked at each other in utter amazement.  The daughter went on to say she could not remember the last time she had heard her Mother laugh.  Her Mother has talked about her new friend constantly and is continually asking when her friend will be back to visit.   The daughter wanted to express her gratitude to our scheduler for the “Marvelous” job matching the caregiver to her Mother and wanted to say “Thank You” for bring laughter back to her Mother and her home.  Visiting Angels attempts to match personalities between client and caregivers and not just put bodies in our client’s homes.  Visiting Angels has a passion in doing homecare right, because we were taught the “Golden Rule” where you do onto to others as you would do onto yourself.  We work to treat our clients and caregivers as family.