Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Caregiver Dilemma
Mom has the same caregiver every week on Wednesday afternoons . Each week I have received a call that Mom is angry at the caregiver, yelling and cursing. This poor caregiver! Mom gets along fine with her other caregivers but this one has only been coming for 3 weeks and each week it's the same thing. Each week after the caregiver leaves Mom says 'She was mad at you for not getting home earlier'. She also says 'I don't like her'. What should I make of this, if anything? As I posted yesterday, she gets along with everyone else. She seems very nice to me and she seemed genuinely concerned about Mom today. She seems to be very professional and competent. To top it off, I'm not always sure that Mom knows she's my mom and I'm her daughter. Most of the time I think she knows, but sometimes I think she's confused. Darn Alzheimer's.
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8 comments:
I'm sorry your mom is so upset about the Wednesday caregiver. Is there any way you can get one of the others to cover Wednesday? I know you will feel badly letting this one go, but is it really worth the headache?
If there isn't another option, then I guess just make do. But honestly, if you can minimize everyone's stress with a simple shifting of schedules, I'd go for it.
Hang in there. It's always something, isn't it?
if you can't find a *fly on the wall* to report what's really happening, i'd try to replace her.
err in favor of your mom. right?
(that's my 3 cents, anyway.)
Thanks Rick and Betsy. The only 'fly on the wall' that I can come up with is that this caregiver is African American. Mom seems to get agitated when she arrives but she calms down after a while. I feel sorry for the caregiver because it can't be easy to be yelled at and told to leave. I give her a lot of kudos for hanging in there and getting the job done.
Hope you can get things worked out with all the caregivers. Even with great resources, I guess there's always something to throw things off.
i agree with betsy and rick. for some reason your mom doesn't like her and with the AD you probably will never know why, and why take a chance on something happening. i'd see if i could find a different one. it will probably make life easier for all concerned. hang in there. i know it's not easy!
I would try to get someone else. My last agency asked me up front if color or gender mattered in our caregivers. It is really common to have problems and the agency knew it.
In our case though it wasn't race or color or gender as much as it was size and loudness. Dad seemed fearful of larger, loud people. And I had observed that so the agency found me smaller, quieter people.
It is hard to know exactly what to do. But I would try to change things to make your mom's experience better.
Praying for you. Tough decisions.
while i'm saddened to hear the probable cause, it's good you dealt with it.
as always...hang in there, robyn.
One thing that Mom said is that the caregiver was very demanding and I noticed that she was very no-nonsense. Maybe that's what Mom had a problem with? I thought she did a good job caring for Mom but we never know what might cause issues.
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