Ten kinds of help, one familiar face.

Personal care

Bathing, showering, dressing, toileting, continence support, transfers, skin care, medication reminders.

The refusal conversation

Most people do not want a stranger in the bathroom, and saying so is reasonable. We do not push. The first visits are usually built around something else — a meal, a walk, the laundry — and personal care starts once your parent knows the caregiver’s name and face. It is slower. In our experience it works far more often than sending someone in on day one to run a bath.

Dementia and memory care

Personal care and supervision from caregivers trained in dementia, with routines built to stay the same.

Sundowning shifts

If the hard part of the day is four in the afternoon to seven in the evening, that is when we schedule, rather than sending someone at ten in the morning because it suits a roster. Consistency of caregiver matters more in dementia than in any other kind of care — a familiar face often does more to lower agitation than any technique.

Companionship

Conversation, cards, walks, church, the grocery run, driving to appointments and sitting in on them.

Isolation is not a soft problem. It often shows up as weight loss, missed medication, falls and admissions. A standing weekly visit from the same person is often the cheapest care anybody ever buys.

Home help and meals

Light housekeeping, laundry, bed changes, groceries, and real cooked food rather than reheated trays.

Funded home care will rarely cover this, which is why it is usually the first thing families pay for privately. It is also the earliest reliable signal that things are slipping: an untouched fridge can tell you as much as any assessment.

Nursing

LPNs and RNs in the home — medication administration, injections, wound and ostomy care, catheters, diabetic support.

Registered with the CLHA (LPNs) and the CRNA (RNs). Some nursing may already be covered by your funded home care plan, and we will tell you when that is the case rather than billing you for it.

Hospital to home

Cover for the first days after discharge, when readmissions happen.

A Glenrose discharge and a Grey Nuns discharge need different plans. We take referrals from the University of Alberta Hospital, the Royal Alexandra, the Grey Nuns, the Misericordia, the Glenrose and the Sturgeon in St. Albert, and we can usually start within 48 hours of a discharge date being set.

Respite care

Hours, days or a fortnight, so the person doing the caring can stop.

Alberta’s Special Needs Assistance for Seniors can cover up to four weeks a year of respite in a care centre for eligible lower-income seniors who live with their caregiver, up to a programme maximum of $5,872 a year across all categories. It does not cover respite delivered at home. Ask us and we will point you at the application. More on Alberta benefits.

24-hour and live-in care

Overnight sleeping or awake cover, rotating 24-hour teams, or a live-in caregiver.

We publish what this costs and we will tell you plainly when it stops making financial sense against a Type B continuing care home, the kind formerly called designated supportive living. The numbers are here.

Palliative care

Comfort, personal care and presence at home, alongside the Edmonton Zone palliative team.

We work with, not instead of, the palliative programme and your family doctor. Most of what families need at this stage is somebody in the house overnight so they can sleep.

Condition-specific care

Parkinson’s, stroke recovery, MS, ALS, COPD, heart failure, cancer treatment, frailty after a fall.

Tell us the diagnosis and we will tell you honestly whether we have a caregiver with real experience of it, or whether you would be better served elsewhere.