Personal care seldom fails all at once. More often a morning routine slides a little at a time until the family notices the person is doing less than before. This guide shows how to write the routine down, compare it with what is actually happening, and decide what help the family needs to hire for.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Write the morning routine as a list
List each task that normally happens between waking up and the first meal. Typical entries are getting dressed, washing the face and hands, bathing on set days, combing hair, shaving, changing into clean clothes, making the bed or changing linens, and setting out breakfast. Put the list on the refrigerator or another shared spot so the whole household reads the same version.
Score each task over a stretch of days
For each task, record whether it was done alone, done with a reminder or a hand, or not done. Use the same three marks every time. Keep the score sheet beside the list, and fill it in at the end of each day or each visit. Write what happened, not what the family expected to happen.
Read the pattern, not the single morning
One skipped morning means little. Look for a pattern across several weeks. Signs that the routine has slipped include the same task missed on several days in a row, clothing or linens that stay unchanged longer than usual, the family starting to do a routine task without being asked, and a task that used to be normal now being turned down. Each sign is an editorial observation until a second person confirms it on the sheet.
Decide who finishes each missed task
For each task that slipped, choose one owner: a family member, a hired aide, or both on set days. Hired help can cover non-medical tasks such as dressing, washing, grooming, and laundry, as the agency's written care plan describes them. Ask the agency which tasks are in its plan, which ones the family keeps, and how a missed task gets reported back to the family.
Take health questions to the doctor
If the change in the routine might have a health cause, the family's doctor is the place to ask. This guide does not name causes, and an aide's notes are not a health assessment. Bring the score sheet to the appointment so the doctor sees the pattern as the family recorded it.
Check the agency before you hire for the gap
Before you sign anything for the slipped tasks, check the agency's federal registration for its category. The how to check a provider yourself, in five lookups guide walks through each check, and the answers belong on the same sheet as the routine list.