Home care in Easton, PA, from College Hill to Forks Township

Families looking for home care in Easton, PA are usually working backward from a date someone else set. Which hospital a parent lands in tends to shape the next six weeks:

• St. Luke's Easton Campus, 250 South 21st Street, the hospital many people here still call Easton Hospital
• St. Luke's Anderson Campus, out by Route 33 with an Easton address
• Lehigh Valley Hospital-Hecktown Oaks, 3780 Hecktown Road, also off Route 33

And because the Delaware is only a bridge away, some families end up at St. Luke's Warren Campus in Phillipsburg instead.

Wherever the stay happened, the discharge papers say the same thing in different words: this person shouldn't be alone all day yet. Hospital-to-home care puts a caregiver there for the first baths, the walker your parent is still arguing with, the new medication schedule, and the follow-up appointment nobody has arranged a ride to.

Easton sits where the Lehigh meets the Delaware, and the ground does real work in a care plan. College Hill rises on a bluff straight above downtown, around Lafayette College. Its houses are tall and handsome, often with a flight of steps from the sidewalk before you even reach the porch. A hill like that is no route to the pharmacy for someone walking with a cane.

Downtown and the West Ward run to brick rows and twins: two or three bedrooms, the bathroom upstairs, and no driveway. Cross into Palmer or Forks and the pattern flips. Ranch houses with attached garages put everything on one floor, and the bigger risk is a parent alone all day at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.

A caregiver's job on College Hill and a caregiver's job in Forks Township are different jobs, so we plan mobility care and personal care house by house, after a free visit to yours.

Daily life in Easton still runs through a few old places. The Northampton Street Bridge, the Free Bridge, links the city to Phillipsburg, and Centre Square is still the middle of town, where the Peace Candle goes up each Christmas.

The Easton Farmers' Market sets up on Saturdays at Scott Park along Larry Holmes Drive from May to December. The Easton Public Market on Northampton Street is indoors, which is an easier errand for someone who can't stand for long.

Lunch, company and a ride there

For company and a hot lunch there is Silver Connections at the Easton Community Center on Washington Street, open Tuesday through Thursday mornings, and the Park Plaza Senior Community Center on Sullivan Trail in Forks Township, open weekdays. The Northampton County Area Agency on Aging, (610) 829-4540, handles care management and ride sponsorship for the whole area.

A Saturday morning at the market and a Wednesday lunch at Silver Connections, with someone to drive and carry the bags, can be the two best parts of a parent's week. Keeping those two dates every week, with a caregiver your parent looks forward to seeing, is the kind of work companion care covers.

Easton's three ZIP codes reach well past the city line, and we cover all of it. 18042 is the city itself, including College Hill, downtown, the West Ward and South Side, plus Glendon, West Easton and Williams Township. 18040 runs north into Forks Township. 18045 takes in Palmer Township and Tatamy.

Schedules run from a few hours a week to overnight care for a parent who is unsteady after dark, or live-in care when being alone is no longer an option. Memory loss gets its own plan through Alzheimer's and dementia care.

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 call families back quickly. See every community we cover, or read about home care across the Lehigh Valley.

A caregiver's visit in Easton often follows the shape of the day your parent already has. Mornings might be a slow start with help in the shower and breakfast by the window, while late afternoons are often the time for dinner prep and making sure everything is set for the night.

Midweek, your mom might ask for a ride to the Easton Area Public Library on Church Street, the old Carnegie building, to pick up a novel and chat with the people at the desk. When a hospital stay has interrupted her routine, small trips like this are how ordinary life starts to come back.

Home care in Easton also keeps family close, including relatives across the river in New Jersey or much farther away. A caregiver can hold the phone while the grandkids say hello, and our Lehigh Valley office sends regular word to everyone who wants it. When your mom would like more company, a few more hourly visits can be added to the week.