Home care in Basking Ridge, NJ, from The Hills to Liberty Corner

The need for home care in Basking Ridge, NJ usually starts in another town, because Bernards Township sits between hospitals rather than next to one. Most often it is Morristown Medical Center, Overlook Medical Center in Summit, or Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset in Somerville.

Families in treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Basking Ridge, on Mountain View Boulevard, live on a different rhythm: infusion days, the flat days that follow, and stretches when someone simply needs to be in the house. A caregiver who comes back on the same days each week makes that rhythm easier on everyone.

Veterans may come home from the Lyons VA Medical Center on Knollcroft Road, in the Lyons section of the township. For them, veterans home care picks up where the VA's own services stop. None of those discharge plans comes with a person attached. Our caregivers are that person, through hospital-to-home care and stroke recovery care, with no large deposit and no long-term contract.

Basking Ridge has unusually varied housing for one ZIP code, and the house changes what care looks like hour to hour.

• The Hills, on Schley Mountain where I-287 meets I-78 and split between Bernards and Bedminster, mixes townhouses and single-family homes, many with basements and bedrooms upstairs. When stairs become the problem, the question is whether the main floor can be set up for one-level living, or whether someone needs to be there for every trip up and down.
• Liberty Corner and the old village center have older farmhouses and colonials with narrow original staircases, uneven thresholds and bathrooms nobody would lay out that way today.
• Ridge Oak, near the village center, has garden apartments for older residents, some of them second-floor walk-ups. In a small apartment, the bigger risk is often being alone too much, not the stairs.

We walk the house with you during the free in-home assessment before suggesting a single hour, and mobility care is built around what we find.

Good home care fits into the routine your parent already keeps rather than replacing it. The Somerset County Senior Wellness Center at Basking Ridge, 202 Mount Airy Road, is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., (908) 204-3435.

Somerset County Paratransit takes residents 60 and older and adults with disabilities to medical appointments first, and to pharmacies and banks too. Rides have to be booked at least 48 hours ahead at (908) 231-7115, and the driver doesn't walk anyone to the door. A caregiver can make the booking, ride along, and handle the front steps at both ends.

Some families bring us in alongside a senior community, such as Fellowship Village, the Life Plan community in the township, when a parent needs more one-to-one time than the community's staffing allows. That is private companion care or personal care added on top, not a replacement for the community.

Our caregivers help with bathing, dressing, meals, transfers, medication reminders and companionship, and they work around the clinicians already involved. We are a private-pay, non-medical agency, founded in 2010 by Teresa Sajkowski, RN.

Starting is simple. Call (609) 208-1111 and talk to a person, day or night, about what is actually happening. We come to the house, look at the stairs, the bathroom and the daily routine, and tell you honestly how many hours it takes. Then we match a caregiver to your loved one and begin, and we keep you informed as the weeks go on.

Schedules run from a few hours a week to overnight care and live-in care, with Alzheimer's and dementia care when memory is the reason you called. You pay us directly, and if your loved one has long-term care insurance, we file the claims so the policy can reimburse you; see our payment options. Basking Ridge is one of the many towns our Somerset and Hunterdon County office serves; check every ZIP code on our service areas page.

In Basking Ridge, a good week often follows a pattern your loved one can rely on. Monday might be the supermarket and the pharmacy, Wednesday the cardiologist and Friday a wash and set at the hair salon, with the same caregiver driving each time and waiting nearby. Knowing what comes next helps a parent feel settled, especially one whose memory has started to slip.

Between outings, the caregiver keeps the house running, with a shower while someone stands close by, clean towels, a real lunch and the mail sorted into piles that make sense. Fresh from a hospital stay, your mom may want to stay in more at first, and her caregiver lets the outings come back as she is ready for them.

Home care in Basking Ridge keeps people in your loved one's life as well. The caregiver can help address a birthday card to an old friend, make sure your dad keeps his standing lunch with former colleagues, or line up the laptop for the grandchildren's Sunday chat. Relatives who live far off get regular word from our office.