Finding part time help while I work

Cindy9519

My husband has early onset Alzheimer’s and is retired.  I still work full time and would like to explore finding someone to keep him company and help him manage his day when I am at work.  He is highly functional but lacks enough activity to keep him busy. Has anyone faced an issue like this?  I appreciate any insights.

Pathfinder52

Dear Cindy --

I no longer work full time but when I did, adult daycare was the solution to keeping my job and keeping DH occupied and safe.  Even though I work from home and am with him almost all the time now, he still attends adult daycare (also called adult day services) two days a week.  This gives me two, 6-hour days each week for bigger projects and "me" time.

I also found him a driver so I could have him dressed and ready to go and the driver would deliver him to daycare & pick him up when the day's events were over.  

Having a "sitter" to fill in any time before or after the daycare might be a necessity for you as well, but piecing it together might be possible if the bulk of his day is managed by an adult daycare provider in your community.

Wishing you all the best as you craft the right solution to your situation!

Warmly,

--p

French

Cindy,

My partner was diagnosed before he was 50 years old. In May 2019. I am still working.

In July 2020, We began with a caregiver who was coming one afternoon per week, to go out and do activities such as hiking, museum, have a drink in the city center, do some errands, practice guitar when it was raining…

Then it was two half days in October 2020.

In November 2020, as it was less ans less possible to let him alone the whole day, we began 1 day of adult daycare.

As he really liked the adult daycare, we added another day in January 2021.

Now, as the disease progresses quite quickly, we have 3 days at the adult daycare + 1 afternoon with a caregiver + an help 3 mornings for shower and dressing.

My partner is easy, but I would recommend you to introduce  a caregiver (or adult daycare) now, even if he doesn’t really need help. You still can reason with him and persuade him. He can still do lot of activities and he will benefit a lot of this help. He will get used so that when you will need more, it will be easy to add other days. If he is still highly functioning, a caregiver to do activities (sport for example) could be more adapted. I don’t know how is adult daycare where you live but here it isn’t active. My partner need activities.

Rescue mom

I think a lot of us have faced that issue, or very similar in needing someone to help at home. I wish I had better advice. It seems to me to be mostly a matter of finding a dependable person who “clicks” with your LO. That’s hard, it’s such an individual thing. It took a lot of “trial and error” for us.  Adult daycare, at least, has a lot of people around.