Home Instead

I have been using Home Instead since May for my husband. They have been always attentive to our needs. Beverly was a great fit for him.

Nature

I used the services of Home Instead Senior Care Somerset, NJ, (“HISC”) during a 3½ yr period during 2013 to 2016. My mother and father resided in an A/L facility until their deaths in early 2016, at the ages of 88 and 92. When they initially moved to the A/L residence, they lived together in a single room. When mom began to have trouble getting out of bed and walking with her walker, I arranged for HISC to provide one care-giver, (“CG”) during the daytime to manage the care for both of them. Sadly, my parents’ health and mental abilities declined rapidly. During the 3½ yrs of their stay in the A/L residence it eventually became necessary to place each of my parents in separate apartments and arrange to have HISC provide a CG to each of them 24 hr, 7 days a week. These were not live-in CGs. These were multiple CGs who worked many shifts to provide the required coverage.

Whenever one of my parents’ health or mental decline needs began to require a transition to a higher level of care, the CG and the HISC staff-nurse, would notice it before I did. I was then immediately contacted with professional advice and a range of suggestions of how to best manage the upgraded requirements. In the last yr of my parents’ lives, in any given single week, approximately eight to ten individual CGs were required to manage each of my parents needs. The HISC staff diligently managed the schedule to make sure both parents were constantly under a CG’s care 24 x 7, including all holidays.

During the period of my relationship with HISC each of my parents required several prolonged hospitalizations. In each case the HISC staff was able to quickly arrange for all the scheduled CGs to go to the hospital and attend to my parent bedside who was there confined. Even when the hospitalization began as an emergency with an ambulance trip in the middle of the night or on a weekend, the CG involved would contact the HISC office staff who were able to immediately respond and manage the CG’s schedules to accommodate my parents’ needs in the hospital, including making sure that the CGs had transportation to and from the hospital.

During my parents’ final yr residing in their A/L facility, they both most likely reached a level of healthcare requirements that probably would have had disqualified each of them from continuing to stay in the A/L facility. They each required help from a CG in bathing, toileting, eating, dressing and movement. Mom was now confined 100% in a wheelchair and, although dad was able to “walk” with his walker, he would often move too fast and lose his balance. He probably would have fallen had his CG not been constantly at his side to steady him. Mom became unpleasant and disagreeable while Dad began tinker with wires from phones, lamps, TVs and other gadgets, trying to plug and unplug wires. Having a CG with him prevented him from doing anything dangerous. Without CGs managing them 100% of the time, they probably would have been directed to enter a nursing home. However, because of the high level of dedication each of the CGs gave in their care of my parents, my mother and father were able to remain living at the A/L facility, were they were comfortable and happy until the time of their deaths.

As sad as it was when both my parents passed away within seven weeks of each other in 2016, it was almost as sad that I had reached the end of my relationship with Home Instead Senior Care of Somerset, NJ. The wonderful office staff and, of course the wonderful ladies (and one man) who served my parents so well for the yrs as their CGs, will always be appreciated as they became my friends. My mother was probably one of their most challenging clients. I was constantly amazed that the CG’s assigned to manage her were always able to handle her and get her through the day.

I am very pleased to offer the highest review of their services and endorse the owners, Janet and Dana Goodman, as the genuinely caring and the great people they are.