Build Trust, Take The Lead, Share Your Heart

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about Home Instead Senior Care. In retrospect, I realize that he was probably just making small talk. However, I found myself holding court for almost twenty minutes about exactly what I was looking for in a caregiver.

Truly great caregivers are diamonds in the rough. They are rare, precious gems which must be mined and polished to shine at their fullest potential. Finding those beautiful people is the single most challenging aspect of what we do at Home Instead Senior Care.

Generally, I find that caregivers fall into two categories. There are those who have figured out how to make what they consider an easy buck by babysitting an old person. They will show up. They will do what is absolutely insisted upon and nothing more. They will move on whenever a situation displeases them or they get a more lucrative offer. Caregivers in this category are a dime a dozen.

And then there are the people who view the work of caregiving as a ministry. These are people who intrinsically understand the tremendous opportunity that we have at Home Instead Senior Care to touch people's lives. Perhaps because they were caregivers for a family member or maybe even needed a caregiver at one point themselves, these servant-hearted angels look at each day as an chance to make a difference.

The unfortunate reality is that there are far too many of the first group and far too few of the latter. The age wave has brought about unprecedented need for services like ours and encouraged many organizations to lower their standards in order to keep up with the increasing demand. While I am proud to say that Home Instead has in no way compromised the qualities we insist upon in our caregivers, we have had to change our strategy somewhat. The task must no longer be to find the best and disregard the rest. Our new challenge is not simply finding the best caregiver but in some instances figuring out how to create the best caregiver.

Many of the applicants who walk through our doors have great hearts and noble intentions. Yet many of them have never had the benefit of a employer who is willing to teach them the requisite skills. As the costs of employing people continue to skyrocket, many businesses expect new associates to arrive ready to work on day one. Hiring someone who must be cultivated and taught is an expense that fewer and fewer enterprises are willing to undertake.

My Home Instead Senior Care franchise works tirelessly to live out our mission of "making Home Instead a great place to be." I believe this is a goal which applies to both client and caregiver. The culture I have worked to create is one which values each individual and is willing to invest in each caregiver with whom we are blessed. It is my heartfelt desire that each of them will look back on their time as a part of our family as one of the more significant experiences of their lives; an experience which afforded them the opportunity to build trust, take the lead and share their heart.

For more information about becoming a Home Instead Senior Care caregiver CLICK HERE.

What To Do When They Don't Know That They Don't Know

Alzheimer's is a dark and cruel disease. It takes from people the one thing that they never consider losing: who they are. For most of our clients battling this disease, the decline is gradual. Over a period of years they become aware that their faculties are failing them more and more frequently. Things they used to know become harder and harder to recall and then vanish completely from their minds. While the toll exacted by this tragic final chapter to some lives' journeys is primarily taken on the life of the patient, the painful difficulties it presents for surrounding loved ones can be equally heartbreaking.

Ronald Reagan once joked about his own diagnosis. "The nice thing about Alzheimer's disease is that you meet so many new friends." This cheerful disposition is not uncommon. For many, the disease begins as nothing more than an increasing forgetfulness; easily to explain and comprehend. For others, there is no awareness of what is happening. These individuals present the greatest challenge to their families in a multitude of ways.

One of our clients who passed away from complications of this disease was a friend of mine.  He was a man with an amazing intellect who, to the very end, could recall intricate details of some aspects of his amazing life. However, he couldn't tell you where his wife was. The fact that she died some ten years before was lost to him. Each day he would ask for her. Each day his family was faced with a cruel dilemma. They could either lie to their father or tell him the truth. While telling him the truth seemed to be the right thing to do, doing so meant that he would relive the tragedy of losing his partner of 45 years. Each time he was told was the first time he heard the news. Eventually, his family got into the habit of just telling him that she had gone out to the store and would be back in a few minutes. His memory of her never waited that long.

For an Alzheimer's patient, truth is relative. There is no right or wrong answer. For an Alzheimer's patient, life exists increasingly in the here and now. Our challenge as family members and loved ones is to attempt to join them wherever they are in that journey. We train our caregivers with that goal in mind. The objective of every day is not to bring a client up to speed on current events. We do not seek to heroically pull someone from the jaws of Alzheimer's. Moments of radical clarity will happen occasionally and we celebrate them when they present themselves. But for all the other moments, for the rest of the days, our goal is to figure out where a client is and meet them there.

When a 93yr old woman tells me on a cold January morning that she needs to get her shoes on, her lunch packed and her backpack ready so that she doesn't miss the bus to school, my challenge should never be to convince her that the bus is not coming. My challenge should be to figure out how to get on that bus with her, even if only in her mind.