A little over a year ago, my grandfather’s second wife died.  Since my grandpa had had a number of serious falls and was showing signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, my mom and her brother and sister decided that the best thing to do was to get around-the-clock in home care for my grandfather.

Unfortunately, we discovered it’s not as easy as it sounds.  First of all, in home care can be expensive, probably partly because of the home care training that caregivers need to get.  For someone like my grandpa, you need to have someone who knows about fall prevention home care – i.e. how to prevent falls in the home by creating more room to walk or push a walker, etc.  We also learned that it’s good to have someone who knows what nutrition an older adult needs — for instance, the caregivers we eventually went with eliminated some things from my grandpa’s diet in order to prevent him from getting heartburn so bad.

In the end, we’re all glad we got expert in home care for my grandfather.  It allows him to remain in his home safely, which is good because we know he wouldn’t want to have to go into a nursing home-type environment!

Me and Grandpa in June 2007