Finding a caregiver to visit a dementia patient in a memory care facility

kantle

Hello, I have an aunt that is living in a memory care facility she is 85. My mother ( her twin sister) and I live in a different state. We just went for a brief visit and have some concerns. Her guardian does not visit on a regular basis. Is it possible for us to hire (private pay) a person to go and visit her on a weekly basis? Where do we even begin? Any ideas, input would be greatly appreciated.

towhee

Hello Kantle, welcome to the forum. You might want to post on the "I am a caregiver" or the Caring for a Parent" Board, this section gets very little traffic.

Yes, you certainly can hire someone to visit. But you need to consider a few things. First, usually the facility wants to know that someone paid is coming in. A few facilities only want you to use their off duty staff, it is an insurance thing mostly. Sometimes if you get someone private from a referral or care.com you can slip them in under the radar, but anyone from an agency will let the facility know they are paid private care. Second, this will be expensive. Most agencies have at least an 8 hour a week minimum, @ 30 dollars an hour. Third, the person/agency and the facility will want the guardian's permission. So, if you do this it cannot be about the guardian not visiting, you have to make it about how you feel about not visiting. Remember that while any family member can provide information to the facility or express a concern about a health issue, the facility does not have to respond to anyone but the guardian, so eventually you have to work through that person.

Usually when someone sets this up, they have a specific goal in mind. They might want to provide extra care on the weekend when there are no recreation staff on duty, or make sure their LO gets to specific activities, or provide extra assistance during meals, or just have an extra eye and second opinion on their LOs condition.

I suggest that you run your concerns by an objective 3rd party. Do you know a nurse or CNA that you could talk to?

terei

I would first ask the facility if they know of anyone who is doing (non medical) companionship work for anyone else there. I hired a lady who did have past nursing experience to come to visit my mom once a week. They would go to lunch, garage sale ing, shopping, making cookies …anything that kept my mom occupied for 3 hours or so. My mom loved her. I paid her $25/hour

kantle

Thank you all for responding. I have reached out to the facility and for now they are sending us weekly updates. I’m very thankful for this as I know they don’t have to. We were just wanting an extra set of eyes to help make sure her needs were being met and companionship. There is no one else to advocate for her. Her guardian does not visit her regularly to see the day to day things. Just feel so helpless being so far away.