Home Health Aide: An Inside Look, Interview with Marie Bryant
Posted by Donna Mae Scheib on November 15, 2016
Home Health Aide: An Inside Look
Interview with Marie Bryant
“Frances would like a streak of blue this time,” Marie interjected.
Both Frances and her hairdresser turned an incredulous eye toward the home health aide. Frances was relaying a frustrating stay in a nursing home upon her return to her assisted living apartment. When seniors become fixated on an irritation or talking point, sometimes a little redirection helps bring them back to a positive frame of mind. Shortly after, Frances had a streak of blue through her powder-white hair, grinning like a teenager and her frustrations momentarily forgotten.
Redirection is just one of the skills Marie Bryant brings to the role of home health aide.
Home health aides can be the buffer families need in addressing health needs and concerns with their loved one, providing a level of objectivity, patience, and insight that family members sometimes can’t. That’s one of Bryant’s motivation in caring for other people’s parents, as her own mother lives out of state, and she’s unable to provide personal care.
“[I’m] doing what I can where I am, and hoping someone in [my mom’s] city will assist my stepdad and my sister. I’m going to try to do what I can for someone else’s mother where I am,” Bryant said.
Bryant has been a home health aide for four years, and can attest to the frictions that arise when family members try to address these concerns on their own.
“There’s always more friction in taking care of your own mother than it is [with] a stranger. It’s always comforting [knowing] the reason why I can’t take care of my mom exists in most families.” Since Bryant can’t be there physically with her mom, she said she gains a lot of satisfaction out of “integrating into the family unit to help things gel. Just being able to fill that role, fill that role as a buffer is very satisfying.”
She’s also found that the career of home health aide has been a natural transition after years of homemaking.
“As people age, they revert back to childhood, then toddler years, so all you really have to do is take care of their needs, and you do get protective and motherly. Having that strong motherly intuition really helps in this field. If you don’t have it, you’re probably not much of a comfort to your clients.”
Currently, Bryant provides care for three clients, but has worked in other nursing homes and assisted living centers. With that experience, Bryant discovered she preferred the autonomous role of home health aide. When the role of caretaker constantly changes in these facilities, it can add to the frustration of both the patient and family. There’s less continuity in care, often a key factor in recovery and stabilization for the patient.
“I like home health better than some nursing care because you’re the sole caretaker. You know someone’s not coming in on another day and undoing [what you’ve done]. It’s satisfying doing home health because you know you’re doing a good job, you can keep things sanitary, you can communicate with any coworkers specifically. The care is way better.”
As needs change for a loved one’s care, it can be excruciating coming to the decision to finally relinquish all care and move a loved one to a nursing home or assisted living center. Bryant commonly offers one piece of advice to families in that situation.
“I always tell them you’ll know when it’s time. Everyone has their own moment when it’s time.” One case immediately came to Bryant’s mind: a man caring for his loved one.
“For one client, it was stepping in feces in the middle of the night. He went through all these other things and it was fine, but after that he was like, ‘No I’m done.’ [I told him] you’ve done this for as long as you can, and there’s no guilt.”
“Some women have kept their husbands, and they’re so sick: they’re fighting cancer, they’re having ostomy bags put on because their bodies are such nervous wrecks, but they feel like they’re betraying [their husband]. They don’t know when enough is enough, and they’re falling to pieces.
“Any women now that I know who are in their 80s, they’re just an entirely different breed of humans who can completely take care of someone who’s twice their size, and still make a bunch of Christmas candy for all the grandkids. It’s amazing, they just won’t quit. They’ll break first.”
But hopefully, such a breaking point can be avoided for most families.
When the time comes for selecting such a facility, Bryant encourages families to closely examine the quality of employees from the moment the family walks in the door.
“Look for quality employees and how they interact with each other. See how things are working, how the employees look and how they’re talking to each other. As you go in, are the employees ready to greet you and have things to show you?”
Don’t be afraid to ask the residents and staff lots of questions, maybe visiting on different days of the week to get a good feel for the culture of the facility.
There are numerous problems plaguing the industry which add to the difficulty of finding quality care that’s the right fit for families. Problems likes rising costs, fraud, and a boom of new patients. But in order to take on these bigger problems, often health care companies need to address internal issues at the management and employee level, like streamlining payroll processes and holding employees accountable.
“A lot of companies in their immature state resemble the example I was giving you of the small woman trying to take care of a big guy…when you have a lot of employees, you can get stuck babysitting employees. They don’t need that; they need to have a system. The more they can go to electronic things, the better. My company is starting to do more and more things maturely. They’re [realizing that] paying people to babysitting doesn’t help. Who you hire makes a big [difference] too. If you can get all those things in order, then you can look at these other [issues]. I think companies are just now getting smarter about these things.”
At the end of the day, you’re still dealing with people. You’re dealing with moms and dads and kids. The golden years are times to strengthen and affirm those relationships, but multiplied responsibilities, distance, age and other factors threaten to fray those precious relationship threads. Bryant sees it all the time with her clients.
“I can fill a void, but I think ultimately what all the clients want is that they’d like their kids to do it…they just want them to care. Some of my clients who their kids have passed away have said to me, ‘You really fill a void for me.’ But some have said, ‘You’re more like a daughter to me than my own. She’s a doctor in this neighboring town and she never comes to see me, but you’re here are at the doctor’s appointment with me.’
“They’re sad. Ultimately what parents want, even if their kids are grown with their own kids or even grandkids, what they always want is their own children to love them. To give them that thank you. Even if the kids aren’t doing anything but paying for their care, for them to pop in and say ‘I love you, you were great, you are great,’ even if they still have issues they’re working out. If [the kids] can swallow it and say that, it helps with their [loved one’s] anxiety, their sleeping, their appetite, everything. At the end, [seniors] just want grateful kids.”