Respite care in Ponchatoula is designed to cover daytime hours when your parent needs assistance, company, or routine to fill their day. This type of care is not meant to replace you, but to offer support by allocating Care Pros to carry out assigned, non-medical care tasks during hours that create the most stress for you.
When you have to travel from Ponchatoula to Hammond for work, the more pressing concern is not “do I need full-time care?”, but rather, “what hours of the day keep distracting me from work?”
That is where I would begin.
How to Identify the Hours That Actually Need Coverage
It’s not necessary to guess how many care hours you need to purchase first thing. Start with the hours during your work day that get your attention most frequently.
Consider your weekday from when you leave for work until you get home. What tasks can your parent complete independently? What tasks result in phone calls, an early lunch break, or you having to return home?
A basic review of the day could look like this.
Before work
Do they need help to start the day? Do they need help to make food? Do they need help to prepare for the day?
Midday
Is preparation of food for lunch a challenge? Do they need someone to eat lunch with them? Do they need help to complete other light household tasks?
Afternoon
Does the day become harder for them as they become more tired or as they have more tasks to do?
End of your workday
Are you leaving early from work often because of something that can't wait at home?
You may find that only part of the day requires coverage.
For instance, your parent may be able to do the morning independently but may not be able to make lunch and may struggle with a few other household tasks. In that situation, the focus of the caregiving discussion may need to be just that time period, rather than considering having someone there for the whole workday.
That is a good way to start thinking about respite care. You can plan it around the actual care gap rather than guessing and saying "I need more help."
For those of you arranging home care in Ponchatoula, write down the interruptions that happen during a typical week. If the same 2 or 3 issues keep happening, you have a much better starting point for a Care Plan.
Which Routines Can a Respite Care Pro Take Over During the Workday?
A respite Care Pro can take over agreed-upon non-medical routines so you do not have to manage every task from your desk, vehicle, or break room.
Depending on the Care Plan, support may include companionship, meal preparation, light housekeeping, personal routines, errands, and other everyday assistance included in the agency's home care services.
The important part is to be specific.
“Help Mom during the day” is hard to plan around.
“Help with lunch, reset the kitchen after, spend time with Mom, and complete the agreed upon afternoon routine” gets everyone on the same page and provides more details.
Your parent should have the opportunity to give input on the plan as well. If your parent still wants to prepare part of lunch, fold laundry, and choose what to do during the visit, and / or spend time alone, then the plan should not automatically take over.
It matters when you're working full time. Your intention is to fill the parent's day only as much as they need to with the parts that have become tricky, and to allow as much independence as possible.
It helps things to be divided by responsibility.
A Care Pro can provide as needed support for the non-medical parts if the family member chooses to take care of certain financial, household, or personal decisions. Medical care, however, remains the responsibility of the doctors, nurses and therapists, etc.
Setting expectations and understanding those boundaries up front helps avoid confusion.
How to Perform a Clear and Clean Handoff Before Heading to Work
A good handoff should ease your worry about answering questions for the next several hours.
You don't need the manual for a 500 series. You need a short list for the important things for the day.
Respite care begins for me when I organize the information into 4 sections:
The routine for the day. This includes the meals, activities, appointments, or any other relevant tasks to be done during the visit.
Parent's preferences. This includes the way the tasks are done, things they prefer to do themselves, and the things they do not like having done for them.
Contacts. Ensure the family and work contacts are available as indicated by the Care Plan.
Anything new that has occurred since the last visit. Share the relevant info, as you can not assume what new info the Care Pro might have.
Keep the handoff as quick as possible and practical.
Instead of writing ‘Dad has been having a bad week,’ identify exactly what has been different. Perhaps he is staying home this whole week. Maybe someone already cleaned the house. Perhaps he canceled his plans for lunch.
Specifics are more important.
After all, by the end of your visit, you should not be making six phone calls home to find out whether lunch was taken care of, whether someone cleaned the house, or whether someone changed something.
Clear Care Plans and consistent procedures to follow up with families should lessen that gap.
If you coordinate care with family in the Hammond area, reviewing home care in Hammond will help you understand local coverage and the services tied to our office.
When Should Recurring Respite Become a Broad Care Plan Discussion?
Recurring respite should be looked at as a broad Care Plan discussion when the original window of coverage does not line up with what is going on at home.
Just because this happens does not mean your parent needs care all the time. What changed enough to warrant this Care Plan review is the new support patterns beyond the usual workday support gap.
Watch for patterns when support starts expanding into new areas beyond the usual support gap.
For example, you may need help two times a day, but maybe now you need it three times since the morning has also become problematic. Perhaps you come home from work and spend the rest of the evening doing all of the things that you were not able to do during the day. Or perhaps your parent has decided to have someone help him out with yet another outdoor support gap.
Those are planning questions.
There are three things you can think about:
Frequency: Is the problem related happening daily versus occasionally?
Timing: Is help needed before or after the original break?
Scope: Do additional tasks become problematic to do throughout the day?
If the answer to the questions changes, it’s better to update the Care Plan.
Being honest about your limit is also important here.
Home Instead offers care that is not medical in nature. A Care Pro is not a nurse, doctor, therapist, or any other professional of that nature. The care that is not medical does not include nursing care nor any medical care whatsoever, and Care Pros do not give care through the administration of medication.
If there comes a time when your parent requires care that is of a clinical nature while you are working, then the better option would be to sync up clinical care with home care rather than using respite care and trying to fulfil a function for which it was never meant.
Respite Care - FAQs (Ponchatoula)
Can respite care accommodate my workdays?
Respite care is meant to accommodate you when you need non-medical care to be done during a particular timeframe. The best schedule will depend on your parent's needs, preferences, your work obligations, and the schedule of the Care Pro. The first thing you need to do is figure out which times during your work schedule are problematic due to the need to step away.
Will I need respite care for the length of my workday?
Probably not. Your parent may only require support for certain portions of the day. If your parent is able to be independent in the morning, but requires support for the lunch and afternoon routines, then that is most likely the period we should focus on initially. A Care Plan should focus on the actual requirements of the individual rather than simply completing every hour of the plan for each work shift.
What do respite Care Pros assist with?
A Care Pro can assist with the non-medical routines of the Care Plan which include companionship, meal preparations, assistance with light house duties, personal routines, and running errands. The responsibilities should be clarified prior to the commencement of care to ensure that you, your parent, the Care Pro, and the office are aware of what this visit is intended to accomplish.
What do non-medical respite care services not include?
Non-medical home care does not include skilled nursing, medical care, therapy, or other clinical services and interventions. Care Pros do not administer any form of medical care. If your parent may require medical care during the work hours, you should contact the appropriate health care professional to determine if other services are required.
How can I simplify my first respite visit?
Prepare a list of your parent’s important daily routines, your parent’s preferences, what your parent would like to do for themselves, and any other information that the Care Pro may need to know. The list should be concise. It is more important to have a clear hand off to the Care Pro, than to give the Care Pro a long list of instructions that most likely will not be important for that day.
If my parent does not want someone taking over the house, then what?
Respite care shouldn't mean taking over. Begin with the specific areas of care where your parent is willing to accept care. Maybe they want someone to join them for lunch, while after lunch they prefer to do activities on their own. Figuring out their needs will help create a Care Plan to better define the role of the Care Pro.
When should I request care beyond respite care?
You may want to ask for a Care Plan outside of respite care if your parent's current support system doesn't fit your parent's routine the way it used to. If needs are arising outside of your support system, care is getting more difficult, or your current system isn't workable with your full-time job, you may rightfully review your support system and the Care Plan.
Build the Workday Around the Care Gap, Not the Other Way Around
If you have a full time job, the goal is not to spend the entire day on the sidelines of your parent's care from your phone.
Determine the hours that create the most disruptions. See which of the non-medical care activities can be replaced. Address your parent's wishes. Then design the support around those wishes.
If you are considering respite care in Ponchatoula, please give our Hammond office a call about a Care Plan for your work week. We can identify support for your week and help you understand the rest of the Care Plan that you want to take care of yourself.
About the Author
Matt Cohn has spent more than 25 years helping older adults and their families consider the support they may need to remain safe and comfortable at home. As the owner of Home Instead locations serving Hammond and other communities, he shares practical guidance about home care, family caregiving, and building care arrangements around the person rather than a template.
