JB’s Home Care Story

I personally experienced the same issues faced by many sons and daughters with aging parents. This is my home care story.

As my father was approaching 80, it was clear that he was beginning to lose mental and mobile ability. He was strong willed and initially my mother tried to keep up with the increasing daily requirements. She did the best she could but it was exhausting.

Fortunately my brother and his family lived nearby (I lived over 500 miles away). As time passed, even they, using their kids, had difficulty keeping up. Eventually they sought outside help from friends and volunteers. That type of care was inconsistent and things fell through the cracks.

Eventually my father entered hospice care and that provided some relief. After months of hospice he passed away.

Throughout this entire period there was a lot of frustration caused by a lack of effective communication between all the well intentioned participants.

Following the passing of my father, my mother started a slow decline. She wanted to remain at home that was much bigger than she needed. We again tried using family and volunteers, but that soon became insufficient. We started hiring caregivers; first for a few days; then more days; and finally almost full time, with family and friends filling in on weekends and holidays. Though we had a lot of support there was a clear lack of coordination.

Eventually, I moved my mother to Greenville, and we found what appeared to be a suitable assisted living facility. My job had me travelling frequently, but my wife was a tremendous help in coordinating the home care provided by the facility. Even then there were issues, and the ability to get quick accurate answers was difficult and frustrating. The front office started out personable, but getting solid answers was always a struggle. The answers especially on weekends and at night were always vague, imprecise and sometimes just wrong.

I ended up moving my mother three times in three years, but the problems were very similar in every facility.

That was my motivation to adapt our Mobile Worker Connection software to non-medical caregivers.