The right home care aide can help the physical, emotional, and mental health of your senior parents. Let’s find out how to interview home care aides in this article.
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Elder parents are the backbone of your family. So, it becomes your duty to care for them and ensure their good health in their old age. Today millions of Americans juggle their busy work schedule, managing kids and household chores. They are not able to find time to care for their older loved ones.
Hiring a good home care aide is one way in which you can take care of your older adults. They assist your elder parents in cooking, collecting prescriptions, transporting, and other domestic duties. Additionally, they provide social and emotional support to old parents to improve their quality of life.
There are nearly 3.2mn home care aides in America. The best home care Aides are good observers, listeners, caring, kind, generous, helpful, and committed towards their work.
Home care aides can also be professionally trained to take care of the patient’s needs. For instance, if your loved one suffers from dementia, you need to recruit an aide who has experience in treating old adults with memory problems.
Selecting a home care aide for your loved one is a big decision because they will become almost completely responsible for the health and welfare of your senior parents in their old age. They must have the right attitude, skills, and training to take care of every need as the older adult becomes weaker and less active.
In this article, we will discuss how to interview home care Aides, which will help choose the right aide for your loved one.
How To Interview Home Care Aide For Older Adults
The first step in hiring a well-matched home care aide for your old parents is to recognize what type of care they need. If senior people don’t need medical assistance but cannot complete daily activities, you need to seek a nonmedical home care aide.
The nonmedical assistance includes various things, starting from emotional support to assisting your old parents in bathing, eating, and dressing. The type of support also ranges from a few hours to two times in a week or full-time care.
Experts usually recommend hiring a home care aide from a licensed agency because they manage the administrative work, payroll, workers’ compensation, and background checks.
But if you hire someone on your own, then these responsibilities are yours, and you may find the burden of managing the various aspects of hiring overwhelming. Another limitation is that there is no guarantee of a substitute when the home care aide is ill.
Another important thing you need to keep in mind is to check specific documents of the candidate interested in-home care aide before the interview.
Once it is clear in your mind about what type of home care Aide you are looking for, you can start screening the applicants and take interviews in a video call or over the phone. If you find the right candidate in the interview, introduce the aide to your senior loved one.
Telephonic Interview Questions
Most interviews will have a brief telephonic round, wherein you get to learn a bit about the aide as a person and their qualifications for the role. Below, I am discussing some of the interview questions that you may find helpful while hiring a home care Aide for your senior parents.
#1. Do you have home care aide certification in this (your senior parents) State?
If the candidate answers yes, you should tell the candidate to bring a copy of the certification at the time of the physical interview.
State certification is proof that the candidate is well trained for caring for older adults. Aides are taught how to avoid bed sores in patients, change bed linen and bathe the bedridden patient.
#2. Do you have a current health care clearance signed by a doctor that you are free from tuberculosis or another communicable disease?
If the candidate answers yes, then tell him to bring the certification at the time of the interview. This certification ensures the safety of your old parents. Another thing you need to keep in mind is that the home care aide should support the weight of your parents if they fall or are injured.
#3. Are you a legal resident of the United States?
I understand that the residential topic is quite sensitive, and many people don’t think it necessary to ask. But it will be better for you if you hire a person who is a resident of the United States, simply because it is easier to trace them as they have roots in the country. You should also take a copy of the official photo of the hired home care aide and attach it to your file.
#4. Are you ready to sign a contract if I will hire you?
Signing a contract is better for both parties(i.e., the home care Aide and the recruiter). The document should include essential things like a task list, salary, house rules, details about the work, and various others.
Having a formal contract that defines the roles and responsibilities of both parties is always a good idea because it clarifies the nature of engagement and limits liability in the case of a dispute later on.
What Should You Do After A Telephonic Interview?
Once you are convinced with the answers that you get on the telephonic round, you will probably need to call the aides of your choice for a physical interview as well.
You need to narrow the interview after the preliminary conversation. Try to choose two to three candidates and fix a time to meet. You can involve your senior parents in the interview.
But if they are not willing to participate, you can ask your friend or colleague to help you with this task. But do not interview alone because different people have different opinions. You may catch things that you have unknowingly missed.
Try to start the interview by talking about the health condition of your senior parents. Try to be open and honest. Additionally, try to talk about the aide’s work after hiring and time commitment.
#1. Why do you do this kind of work?
You can ask the candidate to narrate his background and work experience. Almost all the candidates will like to talk about themselves, especially when they know someone will listen to their words. Your main goal should be to know the following things like
- Who is the person?
- Is the person confident?
- Will your old parents be comfortable with the person at home?
- Does the person have a sense of humor?
#2. Have you ever cared for someone in a similar condition? Is there any aspect of my old parents that makes you feel uncomfortable?
The answers given by the candidate can make it clear that he has truly grasped the health condition of your old parents. An experienced candidate will discuss issues that they might have dealt with in the past with you, and this helps to make things clearer for when they are hired later on.
#3. Is there any part in the job description which makes you feel uncomfortable?
This question is another opportunity to speak frankly about the needs of your old parents. Both parties need to understand the true nature of the challenge that lies ahead, and talking openly about it helps both sides to be clear as to what is expected.
#4. Do you have any problem with the schedule? Will you be available if necessary at weekends and overnight?
Continuity is essential in this type of job, irrespective of whether the assignment is short-term or long-term. Again that is quite vital for the health of your senior parents. So it’s better to clear at the interview round.
#5. Do you have any other questions?
The candidate can ask any questions related to the job, schedule, or anything they like. This might seem like a candidate-oriented question, but you should listen to the questions very carefully because the candidate will likely talk about things that they are uncomfortable with about the job.
#6. Can you provide at least three references?
Try to ask this question if you think that the person is suitable for the home care aide job. You can ask for three references, i.e., two professional and one personal.
What Is The Work Of Home Care Aide?
When your loved one cannot take care of himself or perform the essential daily activities because of chronic illness, it’s time to think about a good home health aide.
A home health aide is trained to assist older adults in doing essential activities like eating, brushing, changing bedpan, bathing, changing the dress, checking the body’s temperature from time to time, and giving medicines or helping an aged person while walking.
If a health aide notices any change in limbs, difficulty in breathing, or change in appetite, then the aide notifies it immediately to the family doctor or nurse.
In my opinion, the home health aides are the eyes and ears of the doctor because they are the first ones to notice any physical or mental changes in the health of older adults.
Why Do You Need Elder Care Help?
Eldercare or senior care serves the needs and requirements of older adults. It includes various services like assisted living, hospice care, adult day care, and home care. Earlier, most senior citizens in the United States lived with the family, and all family members jointly took care of them.
But the scene has changed drastically today. There are many cases where family members do not live in the same city. So they cannot give much time or provide proper care to the ailing older adults at home, and as such, they look for efficient and reliable elder care help programs or home care aides. Some of these challenges are:
#1. Senior Health
As a person ages, he suffers from chronic health problems like diabetes, heart disease, or arthritis and cannot perform daily activities.
They may have muscle aches or joint pain on various parts of the body, which affects the patient’s physical, mental, and social health. That’s why people seek elder care help to help the senior people to do daily activities.
#2. Cognitive Problems
Cognitive problems such as Alzheimer’s and dementia may cause memory loss, difficulty understanding language, or making judgments in older adults.
If a senior person has mild dementia, he may not require more aged care help. But dementia is a mental disorder that progresses as age goes by, so it is important to find a good caregiver who can take care of older adults when dementia deteriorates.
#3. Emotional Problems
An older adult may feel lonely or isolated because of the death of any family member or retirement from the office, or inability to do various things he was once enjoying cause emotional problems. Your loved one will become moody, irritable, depressed, or have an eating disorder because of emotional issues.
Wrap Up
The key to finding the right home care aide is the depth of care needed by your old parents. Many people are certified as Aides. So, you need to choose the right one for your senior parents. The above questions will surely help you to choose the right one.
I hope this article has given you valuable information, and please don’t forget to share this article with someone searching for a home care aide for his old parents.
You can ask any queries related to the questions we have outlined here. If you have your own set of questions and interview tips and tricks, be sure to share them in the comments section so that all of our readers can benefit from your experiences.
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