Personal care is hands-on help with the body: getting into the shower and back out safely, getting dressed, getting to the toilet in time, getting from the bed to the chair without a fall. It is the most physical work a caregiver does and the part of the day most people would rather not need help with.
The call usually comes after something specific. A hip fracture and a discharge home three weeks later. A stroke that left one side weaker than the other. Parkinson's that turned a ten-minute morning into an hour. Or a wife who has been getting her husband out of bed by herself and hurt her back doing it.
Personal care runs the same sequence every time, because a body does better with a routine it can predict. The caregiver works at the person's pace, keeps the bathroom warm and the towels within reach, and dries the floor before anyone walks on it.
The person who needs this can usually tell you exactly how they want things done. They just cannot do them alone anymore. Sometimes that is temporary, like the six weeks after a joint replacement when standing on one leg in a wet shower is the actual risk. Sometimes it is permanent and slow-moving, as with Parkinson's, MS, or arthritis that has taken the hands. It also suits households where a spouse has been doing the lifting. Those families call not because the older person declined but because the spouse ran out of back, and one bad transfer is what ends both of them living at home.
Personal care schedules are short and frequent, the opposite shape of a companion schedule. The common pattern is a one to two hour visit every morning, seven days a week, at close to the same hour each day, since bathing and dressing do not observe weekends. Many households add a shorter evening visit for undressing, oral care, and getting safely into bed. Full bath days are often three a week, with the other mornings being a wash at the sink and help getting dressed. What happens over the next several months depends on why care started. Recovery cases taper: five days becomes three, then two, then none. Progressive conditions go the other direction, adding the evening visit first, then weekends.
Care 801 caregivers are trained for safe hands-on help with daily routines. They are not nurses and do not perform skilled medical tasks, and the line stops at anything clinical. If what someone needs sits past that line, we say so at the consultation rather than after a shift has gone wrong.
Call 801-515-5453. This consultation is more physical than most, because we walk to the bathroom and look at it. Tub or step-in shower, grab bars or none, how high the bed sits, how wide the doorway is, whether there is a shower chair and whether it is the right one. We ask how much weight the person can bear and what the last fall looked like. Caregivers are then matched on physical capability and on gender preference, which is worth stating on the first call rather than after an awkward morning.
For personal care the number of visits matters more than the number of hours. Two separate one-hour visits, morning and evening, cost more than a single two-hour block, because each visit carries its own minimum. Early morning is the most requested part of the day, so a family with some flexibility on start time has more to work with. Weekend coverage adds days rather than hours, since bathing does not pause. A transfer that requires two caregivers doubles the hourly cost for that part of the shift. Needs at this level also move, so have the conversation about what six months from now looks like, not only next week.
Yes. Say it on the first call rather than after a shift goes badly. Gender preference is one of the first filters in matching, alongside schedule and physical capability. It is among the most common requests for this service, and it is a normal thing to ask for.
Often, and it depends on the equipment in the house and how the transfer is performed. A full non-weight-bearing transfer is not a one-person job without the right setup. We look at it in person and tell you honestly if it should be staffed with two caregivers, or if the situation calls for more than we provide.
It fills the gaps rather than duplicating them. Home health visits follow a clinical schedule someone else set, and that schedule rarely covers the other five mornings of the week. Send us the days and times they come and we will build the personal care schedule around them.
We arrange this across the Wasatch Front, from Ogden and Layton in the north through Salt Lake County and down to Provo, Orem and Springville. Pick your city from the service areas menu for local detail, costs and who pays.
Company, conversation, errands and a steady set of eyes on someone living alone.
Learn more →Routine-based, familiar-face support at home for someone living with memory loss.
Learn more →Overnight or around-the-clock coverage when someone should not be alone.
Learn more →Help at home through the first weeks after a hospital or rehab stay.
Learn more →Tell us what is going on. No health details needed.
