Notifex

When an individual needs ongoing care and attention, families are faced with difficult decisions about how and where to provide the needed level of care. In particular, when someone cannot be left alone or requires ongoing supervision or immediate care, families might have to choose between institutional care or home care.

In this situation, the individual and/or the family may not want or need nursing home or hospital care, but the need for a high level of monitoring may be scary, daunting, and exhausting. People sometimes need monitoring because they are a fall risk, they are a wander risk, they get disoriented and need reassurance, they need occasional medical attention, they need help getting to a bathroom or with other ADLs (tasks of Adult Daily Living – toothbrushing, toileting, dressing, putting on a sweater if they are chilly, etc.), and so on. Some of these individuals may be competent to summon help if needed; some are not. In order for families to successfully be able to care for these individuals at home (there are an estimated over five million such situations in the USA right now) there are some resources that are essential and/or very helpful. Typical resources include sufficient numbers of caregivers for round-the-clock care (if it is needed); notification systems to alert caregivers; apparatus like wheelchairs and walkers; accessible bathrooms; various locking schemes on entries and exits, and so on.

Such care is frequently

1. very tiring and physically and emotionally demanding.
2. difficult because it may be provided out of various combinations of emotional reasons (obligation, love, guilt….).
3. challenging because the caredfor frequently has undergone various cognitive and/or personality changes that can be very difficult for a family – or even a professional – caregiver to deal with.
4. particularly demanding also because there may be no clear time frame identifying the duration of the need (it can stretch into years or even decades, or can be measured in weeks); there being no end in sight means that some of the psychological coping mechanisms caretakers might normally be able to use are not available.
5. confining for both the caredfor and the care giver – the safety concerns can mean that both become prisoners to the home-care. This becomes a greater problem as the caredfor cannot safely be left un-monitored for more than a few moments.
6. difficult in that family caregivers find their own lives limited, and are likely to experience a diminishing circle of friends, activities, and free time due to their responsibilities and situation; this is exacerbated by the fact that the caregiver is unable to go out for an evening or away for the weekend without prior planning and arranging for coverage.

Individuals who are being cared for in this situation can have complex emotional responses too. They may feel grateful, resentful, angry that they need the care at all, needy, and more. They may feel like they are always being watched or that they never get to be alone or do anything on their own. At the same time they are dependent, and frequently unable to articulate their issues. This situation is a set-up for those emotions to be ‘taken out on’ the caregiver.

Caregivers, whether family members or homecare workers, are charged with being constantly vigilant and endlessly patient, in addition to just taking care of the constant actual chores of the care: the cleaning, food preparation & serving, changing clothes and linens, and on and on. The demands placed on caregivers put them at serious risk of burnout. Burnout is potentially dangerous in that the caregiver can feel like a captive and can experience resentment and anger (even if they understand that “it’s not the caredfor’s fault”). Burnout can be slow and incremental, but it is vital that it be anticipated and dealt with. Consequences of burnout can include, besides just bad feelings toward the caredfor, threats to the health of the caregiver and abuse of the caredfor. In this situation it is vital that caregivers get all the help and support they can. In addition, they need tools so that they and their caredfor can have the greatest measure of freedom possible, while still being assured that their charge is safe.

Tools For Caregivers

Caregivers need to have a way to know that their caredfor is safe without the caregiver having to hover over them all the time. They need to be able to do things that are important to them, and that they get enrichment and satisfaction from, without feeling like they are not attending to their charge. Caregivers need to be able to have a life. But they need also to know that when they do, it doesn’t place their caredfor at risk.

NOTIFEX offers the ability to monitor the movement of a caredfor, or allow them to call (using a push-button pendant), and still allow the caregiver the freedom of movement to work in the shop, read a book in the backyard, go to a nearby store, visit a neighbor, work in the garden, and so on. With NOTIFEX, caregivers can have this freedom of movement and still know that if their charge arises from bed or chair, tries to leave the house (or whatever condition is tested for by the sensor) the caregiver will get a signal on a small pager they carry on their person.