Home care in Allentown, PA, for when the hospital stay is over

Almost nobody starts looking for home care in Allentown, PA on a calm afternoon. They start in a hospital corridor, holding a discharge date, a bag of new prescriptions and a parent who is very clear that they are going home.

In this city that corridor is usually at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest on South Cedar Crest Boulevard. It might be Lehigh Valley Hospital-17th Street on West Chew Street, or one of St. Luke's two Allentown campuses: the Allentown Campus, or the Sacred Heart Campus on West Chew Street.

Many patients spend a few weeks in rehab first, at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital in Center Valley or at Cedarbrook, Lehigh County's nursing home on South Cedarbrook Road. Either way, the hardest day is the morning the therapists stop coming and the house goes quiet. Hospital-to-home care puts a caregiver there for the first bath, the first flight of stairs, the medication list nobody can read, and the follow-up appointment three days out.

Allentown is not one kind of house, and the house matters more to daily care than most families expect. Center City and the wards around downtown are rows and twins on narrow lots: a stoop at the sidewalk, a staircase that turns halfway up, and the only full bathroom on the second floor.

The West End opens into larger single-family homes with deep porches. Out toward the western edge, in 18104 and 18106, the streets get newer and one-floor living is easier to find.

In a Center City row home, the upstairs bathroom shapes the whole care plan. It decides whether a parent recovering from a hip replacement can be left alone for an hour, whether a shower chair fits, and whether to sleep in the front room for now. A first visit here is as much about the stairs, the doorways and the icy stoop as the diagnosis, which is why families usually ask first about mobility care and personal care.

Giving up driving is often the change that forces the conversation, and Allentown has more of a safety net than many families realize. Riders 65 and older ride LANtaBus fixed routes free, and LANtaVan, the door-to-door shared ride, charges them 15 percent of the fare. Clients of Lehigh County Aging and Adult Services, at 17 South Seventh Street, (610) 782-3200, can ride through the county too.

A shared van still needs your parent ready at the curb, though, and a bus stop three blocks away is no use to someone using a walker.

That is when a caregiver's car turns an empty week into a full one: the Thursday, Friday or Saturday run to the Allentown Fairgrounds Farmers Market on Chew Street, a standing ride to Lehigh Valley Active Life on West Elm Street, or a slow walk along the Little Lehigh in Lehigh Parkway. Getting someone out of the house on purpose, with a caregiver they enjoy, is most of what companion care is.

We cover all of Allentown: 18101, 18102, 18103, 18104, 18106, 18109 and 18195. Schedules run from a few hours a week for bathing, meals and laundry, up through overnight care for a parent who wanders or falls at night, to live-in care when being alone is no longer safe. With memory loss, the routine inside the hours matters as much as the hours, so Alzheimer's and dementia care starts with how your parent's day already runs.

Our office is at 74 West Broad Street in Bethlehem, open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Care is available around the clock, and we keep families informed every step of the way. Christine Vander Valk, our Executive Director, came to home care from teaching and family mentoring. See every community we serve across Lehigh and Northampton counties, or read more about home care across the Lehigh Valley.

Some Allentown parents have stayed in the family twin for decades, and others have moved to an apartment with an elevator and one floor to manage. Either way, a caregiver's morning looks much the same: help with a shower and getting dressed, breakfast at the table, a load of laundry and a reminder to take the morning medications.

Then the day opens up. Your mom might want a ride to the Allentown Public Library on Hamilton Street for a stack of mysteries, or to the parish she has belonged to most of her life, and her caregiver goes along. For a parent recently home from the hospital, small trips like these are often what make the house feel like home again.

Home care in Allentown should keep the people your loved one cares about close, too. When the grandchildren call on video, her caregiver can angle the screen so she sees every face, or page through an old photo album with her and listen. Updates from our Lehigh Valley office reach the whole family, including the brother in another state who wants news after every visit.