I have a strange form of muscular dystrophy. I use a power wheelchair every day. I have home health aides who come to my house twice a day. One aide comes to help me get out of bed and run through a series of range of motion exercises to work out the rigidity and pain from contracted muscles. These aides also help me with simple tasks like bathing, grooming, dressing, meal preparations, and sometimes light housekeeping. My health aides are extremely valuable to me and their help enables me to have a higher quality of life. The (ROM) range of motion exercises help reduce severe chronic muscle and joint pain, encourages circulation, discourages muscle atrophy, reduces swelling, and keeps me from becoming a pharmaceutical junkie. The health aides help me maintain a certain level of freedom and independence while avoiding the nursing home as a place of residence.
The problem with home health aides is that there are very few good ones. The aides who are good at their job, who possess a compassionate, loving, helpful, attitude are absolutely golden. The majority of home health aides however are only marginally better than having no help at all. Many people are drawn to this particular profession because it looks like something easy to do. Some of them are burnouts, alcoholics, and or drug abusers who couldn’t possibly hold a job in any other profession. One reason for the bottom of the barrel employee pool is the low pay and no benefits. Another reason is the perception that this type of work is not very important. It is a strange rotation of different people coming and going in a person’s life who have such intimate contact with you that it’s difficult to maintain a strict, business like relationship… to be continued later
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