Our Services

Our In Home Elder and Senior Care Services

Professional Caretakers is committed to partnering with families and other caregivers, helping to provide at home care for seniors in a safe, nurturing environment. As a non-Medicare, private pay provider, we offer services not covered by Medicare or Hospice. This ensures that you can stay with the same agency, and many times, the same caretaker, whatever your needs are now or in the future. We offer Non-Medical, Personal Assistance and Home Health services as follows:

Non-Medical Services

• Companion/Sitter
• Travel
• Comfort and Reassure
• Security/Safety/Visits
• Homemaker (cooking, light housekeeping)
• Errands & Free Transportation (grocery shopping, doctor's visits, special occasions)

Personal Assistance Services - includes all of the above and personal, hands-on, care:

• Bathing and Dressing
• Feeding
• Transferring
• Medication Reminders

Home Health Services - includes all of the above and more skilled needs:

• Free Care Assessments and Case Management
• Medication Set Ups
• Medication Administration (with RN delegation)
• Exercises, blood pressure, oxygen therapy, enema/suppository, tube feeding, insulin injections, catheter care, eye, ear and nose drops and other delegated tasks

Our Personal Assistance Services

Professional Caretakers provides licensed personal assistance services (PAS), including companion and visitation, personal assistants, case management, and RN delegated medication assistance.

• Professional Caretakers is the largest non-franchised, family owned home care agency in Texas providing personal care in clients home for over 22 years.
• Professional Caretakers will go to your home or apartment, hospital, nursing home, or retirement home.
• All caretakers are experienced, and undergo comprehensive background checks.
• We are bonded, insured, and fully licensed by the State of Texas.
• You don't have to worry about the IRS. We pay the taxes and social security for your caretaker.
• We supplement the staff for many of our clients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. We can also help prevent the facility from moving you to a higher, more expensive “level".
• Professional Caretakers can be your advocate in the hospital and nursing home to make sure you get the care you deserve.
• You get a set hourly rate that is simple and can be easily budgeted. Professional Caretakers does not charge extra on weekends, and there is no minimum hour requirement.
• We provide an initial in-home assessment at no cost and no obligation.
• Our caretakers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
• A registered nurse is on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week home health consultations.
• Client needs and preferences are considered in the assignment of caregivers.
• We respond immediately to service requests.
• A licensed supervisor is assigned to individually manage each case.
• As a non-Medicare, private pay provider, Professional Caretakers can offer personal assistance care services not covered by Medicare.

Our Home Health Aide Services

Professional Caretakers provides premium licensed home health services (LHHS). A Registered Nurse (RN) is assigned permanently to each office, and provides care direction, answers medication questions for clients and families, discusses care issues with the a client’s physicians, and assures that medications are being taken appropriately.

• Our caretakers keep an in-home care journal, so that family members and other caregivers can quickly review a client’s status.
• We can issue email reports to family members regarding care issues.
• We offer free home safety inspections on request.
• Professional Caretakers trained staff can prepare individualized Wellness Programs for clients.
• Our nurses and caregivers receive continuous education on important senior health issues, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, COPD, and Strokes.
• Our Registered Nurses can set up medications, as well as supervise and delegate medication assistance.
• Our RN administrators can prepare status and care reports for our clients' doctors as necessary.

Dementia And Alzheimer’s Care

Our staff Case Manager, Valerie W. Kaye, LMSW-IPR, has more than 20 years experience working with dementia and Alzheimer's patients, and their families. She serves as an educator, advocate, and a go-to person for resource information for clients and our staff. Valerie also assists our caretakers in understanding and preparing them to work with dementia patients.

Professional Caretakers participates in Dementia Programs, including “Activities with a Purpose” and "Memory Lane Program", supervised by licensed elderly care experts.

Dementia

Dementia is a general term that describes a host of symptoms that include impaired memory, judgment, language, and motor skills. Professional Caretakers can help keep dementia sufferers in their own home, where familiar surroundings reduce their anxiety. Warning signs for dementia include:

• Trouble with retaining new memories
• Relying on memory helpers
• Trouble finding words
• Struggling to complete familiar actions
• Confusion about time, place or people
• Misplacing familiar objects
• Onset of depression or irritability
• Making bad decisions
• Personality changes
• Loss of interest in important responsibilities
• Seeing or hearing things
• Expressing false beliefs

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a major cause of dementia, accounting for 60 percent of cases. Professional Caretakers can provide in home care for Alzheimer’s patients through every stage of this heartbreaking illness.

The “Four A’s of Alzheimer’s: amnesia, aphasia, apraxia and agnosia

• Amnesia is defined as loss of memory, or the inability to remember facts or events. We have two types of memories: the short-term (recent, new) and long-term (remote, old) memories. Short-term memory is programmed in a part of the brain called the temporal lobe, while long-term memory is stored throughout extensive nerve cell networks in the temporal and parietal lobes. In Alzheimer's disease, short-term memory storage is damaged first. 

• Aphasia is the inability to communicate effectively. The loss of ability to speak and write is called expressive aphasia. An individual may forget words he has learned, and will have increasing difficulty with communication. With receptive aphasia, an individual may be unable to understand spoken or written words or may read and not understand a word of what is read. Sometimes an individual pretends to understand and even nods in agreement; this is to cover-up aphasia. Although individuals may not understand words and grammar, they may still understand non-verbal behavior, i.e., smiling. 

• Apraxia is the inability to do pre-programmed motor tasks, or to perform activities of daily living such as brushing teeth and dressing. An individual may forget all motor skills learned during development. Sophisticated motor skills that require extensive learning, such as job-related skills, are the first functions that become impaired. More instinctive functions like chewing, swallowing and walking are lost in the last stages of the disease. 

• Agnosia is an individual's inability to correctly interpret signals from their five senses. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease may not recognize familiar people and objects. A common yet often unrecognized agnosia is the inability to appropriately perceive visceral, or internal, information such as a full bladder or chest pain.



Psychiatric symptoms of Alzheimer’s

• Personality changes can become evident in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Signs include irritability, apathy, withdrawal and isolation. 

• Individuals may show symptoms of depression at any stage of the disease. Depression is treatable, even in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease.



• Psychotic symptoms include hallucinations and delusions, which usually occur in the middle stage. Hallucinations typically are auditory and/or visual, and sensory impairments, such as hearing loss or poor eyesight, tend to increase hallucinations in the elderly.


• Hallucinations and delusions can be very upsetting to the person with the disease. Common reactions are feelings of fear, anxiety and paranoia, as well as agitation, aggression and verbal outbursts. 

• Individuals with psychiatric symptoms tend to exhibit more behavioral problems than those without these symptoms. It is important to recognize these symptoms so that appropriate medications can be prescribed and safety precautions can be taken.


• Psychotic symptoms can often be reduced through the carefully supervised use of medications. Talk to your primary care doctor, neurologist or geriatric psychiatrist about these symptoms because they are treatable.