Veteran Care

“Educating ourselves in areas such as PTSD support and VA navigation gives us the ability to provide back end services for our clients and help them find the sources they need to live a more fulfilling and independent lifestyle”

One of the things that makes Veteran Care different is that it is not always elderly. Even though our largest demographic is over 65, we often have younger clients in need of Veteran Care. With Veteran Care, our clients are usually receiving their healthcare through the VA. This directly relates to the type of care that we can give. The VA divides out their care differently than most providers, allowing a maximum total of only 14 hours per week in two hour blocks of time. With this small amount of time, we must be very conscientious of managing our time  to ensure that every minute counts and that we provide the best care possible.

With our private pay and Medicaid waiver clients, we have set a four hour minimum for our caregivers to ensure that they have enough time to provide top quality care. Often times, caregivers will spend from 8 to 12 hours in a family’s home. Veteran Care is an entirely different care model, and it requires our caregivers to provide care within two hour periods. This model can be much more taxing on our caregivers.

Since wartime activities span such a large amount of years, we often see a wide range of behaviors and symptomatology, especially with PTSD. For example, World War II veterans are significantly different by wartime and generation than Korea or Vietnam veterans. We often see an array of self medication, addiction and anxiety.

To support those with PTSD, we provide our caregivers with information about specific triggers. We usually have a social worker when we are providing Veteran Care, along with a plethora of admission information about our client. This allows us to have a firm idea about diagnoses, triggers, presence of PTSD, and where our client is on the spectrum. This information is vital in making sure we avoid triggers, recognize symptoms, and bring added comfort to our clients’ daily lives. Educating ourselves in areas such as PTSD support and VA navigation gives us the ability to provide back end services for our clients and help them find the sources they need to live a more fulfilling and independent lifestyle.