Worked in home care, dementia, residential and nursing homes AMA

[BakerBear]

I ve worked with the elderly in home care, a dementia home, a residential one and a nursing home if anyone has any questions

I have a carer who helps me to wash and dress due to disabilities. I'm only in my mid 30s

Have you ever cared for a younger adult?

Have you ever cares for someone who really doesn't want a carer but needs one? How do you deal with it?

Do you resent the residents?

My pil live in a care home. The manager told us they are not allowed to provide help with ‘medication, nutrition or mobility.’ Do you understand why she means? I’m at a loss. This was after I asked her to check mil was drinking regularly

And, on a related note, is there a division between management and carers? How can we make sure carers are treated well?

I ve never cared for anyone younger than 55. Its all been elderly care what im trained in.

We did accept anyone of any age when i did home care but there was no one young on our books.

I ve been to many people who dont want the care but really need it. We encourage them to let us help them. We always explain we are here to help and make sure they are ok. As you keep going to them they get used to you and let you do more and more for them but it does take time to break that barrier down and for them to accept help.

No i ve never resented them. You are in the wrong job if you do. I always had it in my mind that these people pay a hell of a lot of money for carers and they deserve top quality care.

Thanks. When I used to visit my grandma it was an awful place, an awful environment and I just wanted to get out. I didnt and still don't understand why carers don't feel the same and I wouldn't blame them. I suppose it's pride in their job.

They cannot help with medication, nutrition or mobility???? I ve never heard that in my life!

Its a care homes job to give people medication, provide good nutrition and help them to eat and to maintain their mobility as much as they possibly can.

There is a divide between management and carers. Some care homes i ve worked in the managers are totally seperate and others i ve worked in the management get stuck in.

I think for carers to be treated better the ratio needs to go up so carers are not over loaded with the amount of residents they need to help. I think they pay could be much much better

Every care home is different. I ve also been for interviews in care homes and turned down the job as i just didnt get a good feel about the place.

Every care home feels different to the next one

Thank you!

What made you go into this line of work? What’s the best place you’ve worked at and what was the worst?

Are care homes generally willing to pay more to attract and keep experienced staff?

Have you ever done home care with the quick 10-15 min visits? How do you think people cope with the isolation if they live alone and only have carers coming in for 10 mins at a time?

In your experience can people have a good quality of life in care homes, with and without dementia?

I really admire the work you do, and it shocks me how little carers are often paid.

My Dad is in mid stages of vascular dementia and we are currently exploring day care and respite care in a dementia specialist environment.

What questions should we be asking and what things should we look out for to ensure the care is good quality and he will be looked after?

I’m utterly terrified he will become one of the awful stories in the newspapers

I no longer work in the industry and havent for around 7 years.

It was always minimum wage and still is. The pay is disgusting tbh.

I first went into the line of work as a stop gap as i wasnt sure what i wanted to do job wish and i needed a job asap. The problem with care work is it attracts people with no experience or qualifications. Its very very easy to get a job in the care sector.

Once in the care sector i really liked the job and them started to gain qualifications in it.

I liked the home care best as you was in and out within the community all day (i used to visit around 15 people a day).

Most of our calls in home care were for 30 mins. We did do some 15 min calls but they were usually just to give medication and check the person was ok and maybe warm a microwave meal up.

It was very hard on the 15 min calls as the client more than often wanted you to stay and talk to them but you literally couldnt stay longer as we had a scanner system that tracked how long you was in the house and how long it took you to get the next one and the office wanted to know why it took you such a time to do your round if they felt you was going over your time.

When looking for a care home its really important to shop around. I worked in one care home (residential) and it was excellent. It had an ofted outstanding and was a grade ll listed building so had some nice features in there plus it was spacious. The care was excellent and the manager was a right cow tbh but because she was like that staff were wary of her and people made sure they did their jobs right.

In this care home they used to have a full time activities co ordinator (most care homes have them in 2 afternoons a week) plus they used to have a theme night once a month were the dining room was dressed up and every one had a meal with music etc and each month was a different theme. For example french night, italian night etc.

With the right care home the quality of life can be much better in the home but their quality of life can be better at home if the care home is not right for them.

When looking at a care home i personally would look for these pointers...

• smell! How does the place smell?
• is there an activities co ordinator? If so how often does she come?
• are people just slumped in their chairs left to it?
• security on the doors. If your relative is more than likely going to walk out on their own then they need to have a locked door policy.
• whats the food like?
• incontience pads... are they the free ones or is the home willing to buy proper ones which are much better but quite costly?
• how are the beds made up? If the beds are made properly then it gives you an idea of the standard of the rest of the home.
• how does the manager come across? Do you think she could be a push over? Stern no messing mangers are the best. If the manager looks like they dont have much authority in them then it means that staff could take advantage and this reflects on the running of the home.

Thank you, that’s really useful.

My dad ended up with ungradeable ulcers from a dementia care home
First we knew was when he had bandages on his feet and I asked
Oh he’s got pressure sores off the bed
They got that bad, he went into hospital, the staff nurse there said they were ungradeable

But how do you prove it was that care home fault !!!!!

Dad as now passed

I’m never going into a care home
I’d rather kill myself first

For bed sores a resident needs to be turned every 1-2 hours. A turn chart should be in place with the date, time and who turned the resident.

It takes 20 min for a pressure sore to start to form. This is in very frail people though.

Gosh. That sounds horrible - your poor Dad.

Thankfully, we are still in a position to care for him at home so will likely be day care support rather than placing him in a residential setting.

Do you have any training in manual handling? If so do you feel this training is enough? Do you ever have any manual handling concerns?

We did a one day manual handling course.

Tbh if you did everything correctly with moving and handling people it would take you forever and you wouldnt be able to do everyone in a timely manner.

Thats why 99% of carers cut corners and lift without the equipment. Thats why they all have back trouble.

I think the staff ratio needs to go up so that people have the time to do the moving and handling correctly.

Thank you for all that you do.

I just wanted to come back here to say thank you for the advice I was given.

We found a fantastic day centre to care for my Dad and keep him engaged and busy. We did ultimately have to find residential end of life care for the last few days of his life, and whilst it wasn’t ideal/there were some concerns we were able to keep him much more comfortable. I’ll be forever grateful to the nurse on shift that night.

Do you judge the relatives who only visit rarely?

What do you typically do for a client?