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When you felt the need for a professional care giver for your loved one, you start the journey by finding the best home care service provider. Elder care services are a growing part of the healthcare market. It seems everywhere you turn these days new care services providers are sprouting. Most of them are just businesses without the right passion or attitude for it. The sad part is that many of the people who run such care agencies have no qualification or experience for the job. So separating the chaff is formidable. More providers mean more choices but how do you choose what is right for your loved one and your family?
We insist on a one-to-one meeting. In such an interaction, we will know the clinical condition, tasks involved, prognosis, and family dynamics. Such a meeting will empower you with lot of information about the long-term care. In short, you learn what questions to ask, what information to gather and where to go for references. Knowing the service provider thoroughly is imperative as you are going to partner with care provider for a longer term. So meet us in person and know more about long term care.
Customized Care Plan
Drawing a Customized care plan for each Patient
Drawing a Customized care plan for each Patient Each patient is different and so is the management. The geriatric assessment should give families and caregivers all of the information needed to develop a solid, comprehensive care plan for their loved one.
A care plan “assesses an individual’s medical and social care needs, and then coordinates assistance from` service providers and help from family and friends to enable persons with disabilities to live with as much independence as possible.”
Such a plan should include:
- Help managing personal care responsibilities, medication delivery, and general physical, mental and psycho-social issues. For some families, a home health aide or an assisted living environment addresses these issues.
- Anticipate changes needed in health and living arrangements developed to ensure the continued safety and health of the aging individual. Sometimes, simple attention to geriatric home safety is all that a family needs to ensure the continued health and safety of their loved one. Other times it may be necessary for the older individual to be moved to a smaller housing unit, or including assisted living options or Geriatric Care Facilitys.
- Managing the connections between support services, healthcare providers and the aging individual to ensure that the loved one receives the necessary care and monitoring.
A detailed plan must be drawn for ongoing monitoring and reassessment. Families, especially those who don’t live nearby their aging parents, should make sure that they receive periodic reports about their loved ones. Regular reassessments should be scheduled to address any changes in the older person’s physical, mental or psycho-social needs. Special attention should be paid to the need for immediate modification in the event of a drastic change in the older person’s health.
Caregiving Matching Process
Depending on the condition and tasks, care giver is selected
The care process begins when you make the first call. It’s a hard time for many families, and we understand your need for a trusted ally. Once we are aware of the condition of your loved one then we focus our efforts on discovering your care needs, assessing the challenges you face, and find the best caregiver suited for your family. We get to know your needs in the initial meeting and walk with you through the process.What we need is simple:
- A healthcare profile of your loved one.
- Their physical care needs.
- General information regarding cognitive abilities.
- Your opinions on the personality type and communication needs of your loved one.
Once the assessment and care plan is prepared, we start the caregiver matching process. In selecting a caregiver, we understand and honor our client’s individuality and need for independence. Matching caregiver to client starts with understanding the clinical condition and the care involved and the interpersonal dynamics of the families we are about to serve. Beyond matching personality needs, we assess the care needs of the client – whether they require ongoing cognitive stimulation, the level of assistance needed to retain independence, and their desire to remain in control.
After getting to know the care involved we try get a suitable caregiver with experience in handling such clinical conditions and also match the personality traits of the patient. Even though every caregiver is appropriately trained, we know each personality differs. That’s why this crucial matching process. Several parameters are looked into and finally we choose. We don’t allow you to be a part of this process because we believe that are the best judge in this situation. This is because we know the caregiver’s personality, experience and domain knowledge. No one else gives you the ability to choose the exact caregiver you want from a group of the most qualified caregivers in the business, based on your unique care profile and requirements.
Signs That Your Loved One Needs At-Home Care
It is important that you understand needs of the infirm.
Live in care is a full-time home care service that allows you, or your loved one, to stay at home in familiar and relaxed surroundings with an incomparable level of one-to-one support.Live-in home care means that a caregiver lives in your home to help with anything from any routine care to assist in crisis situations.
Assisting personal care, housekeeping and companionship it is a direct alternative to residential care that empowers you to retain control and independence. Our trained live-in-caregiver works with you to meet your personal needs and wishes, following an individually designed care plan that is put together by one of our social gerontologist in conjunction with the family members who are familiar with existing routines and needs. Your loved one’s care is arranged on the patient’s terms and is designed to meet existing preferences for meals and eating times, naps and hobbies as well as established medication and care routines. And as your needs change, our one-to-one care has the flexibility to evolve with the patient’s needs.
If you haven’t heard of live-in care before, let us explain the basic rules: the caregiver can live in your home as long as there is an appropriate place to sleep; doesn’t need to be separate bedroom and storage space for their belongings. In Bangalore’s chaotic traffic, it is impossible to commute to and fro to your house and there are all the chances that he/she may come late to work. Also there are possibilities that he/she may call off the duty without sufficient notice for you to make alternate arrangements leaving you in the lurch. Our past experience taught us that the part time arrangement is certain to fail, and so we don’t want to get into a failing situation knowingly.
If you happen to be a family caregiver, you know that a poor night’s sleep can affect your health. Usually the live in caregiver gets up one or two times in the night to help the patient with certain tasks. Live-in caregivers are entitled to 8 hours of sleep. If the patient needs 24 hour care, or you expect the caregiver to be awake at all times then 24-hour care means that then two caregivers rotate shifts so that someone is always awake and alert to help your loved one.
In addition to providing homemaking and companionship services, overnight caregivers can provide a number of personal care services, including:
- Bathing
- Skin care and make-up
- Continence care
- Dressing and grooming
- Personal hygiene
- Restroom assistance
- Active range-of-motion assistance
- Transfer and ambulatory assistance
- Accompaniment
- Assisting with Medication
In short, an increasing number of people, live-in care is a wonderful, welcome alternative to institutionalized care. Live-in care helps people live independently in the comfort of their own home. No upheaval, no disruption. It gives them the ability to be independent, stay close to family and friends, keep their pets and most importantly maintain their hobbies and interests. In the end, we are the proponents of “aging In Place”.
Why advantAGE is different from others
It is important to why we are special
We started our business after understanding the stress and anguish of trying to find reliable, qualified, well-trained caregivers for many parents. We wanted to respect old people’s wishes to age in place, but we needed to be sure that they remained safe, comfortable and happy. It was also important for us that they maintain their dignity and independence. Finding reliable, compassionate, genuine in-home care for our loved ones was very difficult and frustrating and we wanted to eliminate these challenges for many families.
Sixteen years later we are a well-established and respected professionally run business, locally owned and operated, and not part of any franchise. We continually receive outstanding feedback and encouragement from our clients (patients) and their families, as well as local referring professionals that recommend our services with confidence.
It is important to know why we are special. How?
First we don’t discuss anything over the phone. We feel that for a successful caregiving assignment we need to sit down for a one to one chat. We don’t take any caregiving assignment over the phone. We need to know the clinical condition, tasks involved, prognosis, family dynamics and support systems. Once we go through the recent medical history of the patient we draw a care plan that suits the needs of the patients.
Care planning is the link between assessment and service delivery, whereby facts about the client gathered in the assessment process are analyzed and translated into problem areas. Identifying problem areas enables the social gerontologist to describe desired outcomes and recommend a package of services that will help the client achieve those outcomes. Care planning leads to the development of a service package for each patient. The patients significant others are involved through the process. We insist on meeting patients family so we don’t entertain any representative of the patient like secretary or driver. Good care planning incorporates a careful consideration of all possible service alternatives before a decision is reached regarding which alternative is best for the patient.
After our initial meeting, we develop a Custom Care Plan. This plan is tailored to your loved one's specific needs. We make detailed recommendations on exactly what kind of services we feel would benefit them. We then arrange a follow-up meeting with you to go over the Care Plan line by line and modify it as you see fit.
Once you agree to the Care Plan, we start our search for the most appropriate caregiver to implement care. Our system of matching caregivers to clients takes numerous factors into consideration: services needed, your loved one's interests and the personalities of both your loved one and the caregiver. Definitely we look into the experience and conditions managed by the caregiver in the past. By looking at the whole situation, we're in a better position to judge to select the best caregiver possible. Of course, if there are ever any concerns about a specific caregiver, we can search for and provide a replacement in very little time.
Our caregivers are asked to keep extensive notes about the care they provide. Those notes are kept at your loved one's home and are available at any time. Though it is impossible to personally visit each patient in Bangalore, in special cases we personally visit and take stock of the situation. When you have signed up for foster care, managers make regular unannounced visits to the homes to ensure caregivers are following the specifics of the Care Plan.
We will not leave the patient in the lurch at any cost. Whenever the caregiver goes on leave we make sure you get a replacement one day before so the continuity is maintained. On a later date when the tasks change due to the change in the patient’s condition and one caregiver cannot deliver services day and night we reassess the condition and tasks and make another care plan. Again, we consider our caregivers are our assets and we expect our clients to treat them with utmost respect.
Offering excellence in service, genuine and compassionate care and consistently outstanding performance are key to our guiding principles. We are passionate about the care we provide and treat our clients, as well as our referral partners, with the respect and cooperation they deserve. We help seniors age in the comfort of their own homes.
Know Our Care Providers
Our employees are our greatest asset
At advantAGE, we recognize that to be a great home care company, we must have caregivers with extra ordinary qualities. Engaged, energized, passionate caregivers who take ownership for the care and service they deliver and who are driven to do their best each day for their clients. That's what the advantAGE home care business is all about. All companies promote their strengths, but we promote our caregivers because we believe they are the basis for our success and what sets us apart from our competition. We are fortunate that our caregivers come to us with an innate passion for caring the elders. They love what they do and are personally fulfilled by their work and the impact they have on the clients, families and communities they serve.
All our caregivers undergo a painstaking rigorous three month on the job training. All our caregivers are trained in our care facilities with highly experienced tutors. We impart class-room teaching of about 60 hours on similar topics prescribed by NGNA. A concise syllabus is given below.
Other than syllabus, we inculcate lot of values in these caregivers. We make sure they understand the need for a ‘humane approach’ with the infirm elders and that is why we train them to be more caring and loving, sensitive to the needs, show patience and above all treat them with dignity and respect.
One of the things advantAGE is most proud of and thankful for is our amazing community of home care and support professionals. We believes outstanding outcomes begin with good communication. Dedicated to this ideal, advantAGE employees represent a diverse group with a multitude of languages skills.Currently represented languages include English, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya.
Our course curriculum consists of 60 hours of classroom instruction and three month clinical that teaches the students
- Anatomy and physiology,
- Safety conditions,
- Standard precautions and infection control,
- Body mechanics,
- Emergency situations,
- Hospice care,
- Chronic Conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s
- Diabetes,
- Heart disease,
- Arthritis,
- Cancer,
- Stroke,
- Cerebral Palsy,
Plus three months of clinical that teaches the students how to
- Bed making,
- Helping with toileting,
- Ryle’s tube and PEG feed,
- O2 administration,
- Positioning,
- Take vital signs,
- Change non-sterile dressings,
- Caring for patients who have urinary catheters,
- Tracheostomy, colostomy,
- Transferring patients using Hoyer Lift and other mechanical devices,
- Giving patient a bed-bath,
- ROM exercises
Typical Duties of a Care Provider
A home health aide can provide many different services to a loved one
