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DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to Ft Wayne Senior Care Radio. My name is Damien Allen and joining us once again are Julia Andrew and Brenda Tunin, RN, of Fort Wayne Comfort Keepers. Good afternoon, ladies, and welcome to the program.
JULIA: Good afternoon.
BRENDA: Hello:
DAMIEN: Today we are going to be discussing what types of services that Fort Wayne Comfort Keepers provides to its clients and to the community. Julia, what types of in-home companionship and care services does Comfort Keepers provide?
JULIA: Damien, we have actually lots of things that we do for the companionship side of our care giving. It’s really anything that keeps the household running, any of those tasks. We do meal preparation. Our comfort keepers work with the clients to pick out recipes and they prepare those together. The main thing we do, we do interactive care giving so our caregivers get our clients involved in all aspects of whatever we are doing. As much as they can do. So if it’s meal preparation, you know, if they can’t stand, we have them sit and maybe peel the potato or whatever part they can do of it. They feel like they are involved and they keep some of their independence. They pick our recipes together. Maybe things the client used to like to make, but can’t make any longer. They’ll put grocery lists together and go grocery shopping and then prepare those meals. It keeps the clients’ minds active too and it just helps them hold on to their independence and feel like they are doing their part and that’s real important. Especially for women. When we have caregivers coming in, if it’s a husband and wife situation, the wife can feel threatened and I would too, and Brenda and I have talked about this before, you’ve taken care of your husband and done the housework and the meal preparation and then having another woman come in and take over, that can be threatening to that person. So we just try to go in and do it the way the client wants it done and let them hold onto that control and let them do as much as they can.
We do housekeeping as far as dusting, vacuuming, sweeping and mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning kitchens. Our comfort keepers are really good about doing whatever needs to be done. We are not Merry Maids, so they can’t get on ladders and do the heavy duty cleaning. Our caregivers do more than is expected. We do laundry and change beds. That’s very hard as you age to get those sheets, it’s like wrestling an alligator to get the sheets off and then get them back on. It’s very taxing.
DAMIEN: At times it doesn’t even matter if you’re of advanced age, but…
JULIA: I know, myself, I have to try to figure out, you know, I get the sheet on there the wrong way, and then you have to do it over, and yeah, it can be hard. So we do that grocery shopping and errands. Our caregivers will take our clients grocery shopping if they are able to go. If they are not able to go, especially during the winter months, we don’t like them to go out, because there is so much ice and snow here. So our caregivers will go out grocery shopping for them and bring the groceries back to them and put them up. But for our clients that can go, we will take them to the store with us. We will go pick up prescriptions or take them to the pharmacy, to the hair dresser. I just had my nails done this morning, and the lady who does my nails, does several of our clients’ nails. So we take them to get their nails done, you know, to get a manicure or pedicure. Just because they can’t drive any longer, they don’t have to give up doing those things. That keeps them happy, because man I feel great now. I had my nails done and my pedicure and I’m ready to go. Our clients should be the same way. They shouldn’t have to suffer because they can’t drive any longer. The same with our nail clients, we take them to the barber shop.
BRENDA: Menards and Lowes. They like to walk around.
JULIA: Yeah, we do that. What else do we do, Brenda? The companion side of it, conversation, you know, if our client likes to play games, Scrabble, or whatever they want to do. We can do it for them. We watch TV shows together with them, things they like. So companionship is a big part of it, but even if we are changing the beds, we are having companionship, because we are saying, “Do you want to help me put these sheets back on, or do you want to help me fold these towels?” With men, a big thing is, and I didn’t think about this, until we started Comfort Keepers, if you have been married for 30 years, and your wife’s done everything for you, your wife passes away, you are lost.
BRENDA: Yep.
JULIA: They’ve never used a washing machine. They’ve never, you know, they don’t know how to fold towels or put sheets on the bed, or making a recipe where it says, fold in eggs, what the heck does that mean? We’ve had clients say, “What does that mean, fold in eggs?” So if you really think about it, it’s the same with a woman. If the husband has taken care of all the finances when they pass away, they are lost. So it can work the same way, so we’ve helped male clients figure out this is what fold eggs mean. This is how you change a bed, this is how you work the washing machine and the dryer. It’s a lot of different things. I think Brenda was going to say something.
BRENDA: Yeah, another big thing which is a very fun activity that our caregivers offer too is those boxes of pictures that are just stashed away in closets. They’ll get those out, they talk with the clients and find out who is in those pictures and write names and things on the back, and help organize those into albums and it makes it so much nicer, because when they pass away family can just pull those out and it’s already for them, they know, “Oh this is great aunt so-n-so.” It’s a nice experience for the care givers, because they get to find these stories and hear these stories that our seniors have and to share that with them is a big part of their lives and they love talking about their pasts.
JULIA: And that’s great for their mind too and just for their whole moral. Depression amongst seniors is a big issue, and I can see why. They have to stop driving. You’ve lost all of your independence, but it doesn’t have to be that way. They have choices in senior care and in-home care now that they didn’t have years ago. We remind them to take medications. We have 24 hour care, and we have resbit care…relief for family. Maybe their loved one lives with them and they are going on vacation. We can stay with their loved one till they come back from vacation. We work with Hospice clients too, and Brenda will talk more about that when we get into the personal care services, but that is pretty much it. Anything that keeps the household running. If you can think of it, we help them do it. We can plant flowers. There’s a lot of things. There’s a lot of things we do that people don’t think about that we help with.
DAMIEN: You brought up how when you lose a spouse somebody of that generation they lose a spouse they may be lost, because back then there was such a clear defined, you know, the woman stayed home and took care of the house, the man went out and worked, so they may not necessarily be cross-trained for the other purpose. What a great idea to have those services available for somebody who may not have picked up that side of taking care of the household or taking care of the bills, or taking care of what needed to be taken care of. Now you also offer a lot of personal care services. We just mentioned that, Brenda. What types of services does Comfort Keepers provide their clients?
BRENDA: To begin with with that personal care, it would begin with bathing. It can be as simple as just being there in the home and helping with putting lotion on feet, helping dry off, helping get in and out of the shower or the tub. When I do assessments, we go out and we look at the bathroom. Is it accessible. Do they need showered benches. Sometimes we’ll suggest the one type of shower head. Whatever we can do to make it as easy for those senior clients as possible. It’s so important that what they can do that they still do. They take a part of their morning routine. Those men that can still shave, we encourage to shave. We’ll get a little chair for them. Let them sit down and do it. There is no reason that they have to have somebody do all of this stuff for them. They can still do quite a bit of it. We also offer mobility assistance. What we mean with that is there are so many different, I don’t want to say devices, but appliances that are out there, different walkers and canes and different things that can be used we do some referral in that sense and help teach those clients the proper techniques of using that. Maybe it’s their walker, several different kinds. There is a new kind that has a little chair with it so that if they get tired, if they’ve gone for a walk, maybe they are out shopping, they can just turn around and sit right down. Those are just fabulous. It’s a good tool for these seniors when they are out and about. Physical health benefits of activity include increased stamina and energy, a strengthened heart, lower blood pressure and improved digestion and sleep. So getting them moving, keeping them moving. We do range of motion exercises. We encourage those if they have a little exercise bike there at home, or if they have a treadmill as long as they are mobile and there is no safety issues, we encourage them to do some exercises. We’ll even do little things like going and getting a couple of cans of soup and do arm exercises and leg exercises. When the clients start complaining that that’s too simple, I suggest well let’s go get a 5 pound bag of sugar or flour. We can just build on that so they are moving and doing all those things that they still need to be doing. When we have a client that is bedridden or someone who has com home out of rehab and they are still getting some in-home rehab, maybe they have had a stroke or maybe they have had a fall and a fracture, transferring and Positioning
Comfort Keepers are trained to move and place clients in correct posture position to promote health and safety and proper functioning of the body's many systems. Proper transferring and positioning is so important that it’s done properly. I teach all of our caregivers proper techniques. We have two different techniques that we use to help people get up whether it’s from a chair or from the bed, and we teach the family that too, because sometimes we’re not there 24 hours a day. We teach the family those same techniques so everybody is doing it the same. So that senior client knows that when I get up from the chair whether it’s my husband or whether it’s a caregiver, they are all going to help do it the same way, and that prevents any further injury.
JULIA: And Damien Brenda is a registered nurse. You mentioned that at the beginning, but she has almost 30 years of experience, and even though we are non-medical care, she does all the training for our caregivers. So our caregivers are very well trained. She has even worked with families before that can’t afford 24 hour care. She taught them how to do transfers so they don’t get injured. Having Brenda is a real asset and a lot of companies like ours don’t have a nurse on staff. They don’t feel it’s necessary, but we just think it’s such a benefit for us and our caregivers.
BRENDA: Yeah, and it keeps that continuity of care going. We also sit with toileting and Incontinence Care, and as Julia mentioned a little bit ago, we work with Hospice clients. Now Hospice clients we know are at their last stage of life and it’s so important that we take those tasks and help those clients with things that will make the family uncomfortable. Many of them end up having to be bed ridden and they have Depends and they are incontinent, so our caregivers are trained to take care of that so that family doesn’t have to. Family can be there with that client with their loved one and just be the family and love them and share memories and not have to worry about that personal care. We also have on occasion had to help with special diets and feeding of clients. Maybe someone has come home and they have had a stroke and that is their side affect or their residual from that stroke is that their inability to feed themselves, fine motor movements are difficult when you have had a stroke. So we work with a client. Again, we don’t take over. It’s so important that we are working with them, that we are helping them feed themselves and helping strengthen those motor movements so they can do that on their own as time goes on.
DAMIEN: Now we’ve mentioned Hospice and end of life care. What if we have an older loved one who is suffering from Alzheimer’s or Dementia? Is there services for that as well?
JULIA: Yes, absolutely. We have also kind of teamed up with Alzheimer’s Association. They have many, many different referral resources and pamphlets and instructions and different kinds of books out there. We have pulled many of those out of their facility and we teach out care givers that. We try to have Dementia care seminars per se a couple times a year and we talk to our caregivers and give them the different ideas. One of the packets which was probably my favorite are A hundred different activities and creative ideas to maintain memory function. It is a great pamphlet, many good ideas on different things to do, of things that help stimulate memory, to help maintain that memory that those seniors happen to have.
DAMIEN: If someone is looking for more information on your services, where do they go?
JULIA: They can go to our website and our website address is www.comfortkeepers.com/fortwayne-in.
BRENDA: Or any time they are welcome to call us here in our office too. We have packets put together or if somebody just wants information, we are more than happy to send that.
DAMIEN: Thank you very much for joining us today, ladies, and explaining the services of Fort Wayne Comfort Keepers.
JULIA: You’re welcome.
DAMIEN: You have been listening to Fort Wayne Senior Care Radio. My name is Damien Allen. We have been speaking with Julia Anders and Brenda Tunin, RN, of Fort Wayne Comfort Keepers. Thanks for listening today. Everyone have a great afternoon.
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