Home care in Elizabeth, NJ, neighborhood by neighborhood

The search for home care in Elizabeth usually follows one particular event: a fall in an Elmora kitchen, a discharge date from Trinitas, or the first time a doctor used the word dementia. After that, a decision has to be made this week, and we can help you make it.

Elizabeth is a set of very different neighborhoods. Midtown and Uptown run along Broad Street, where a parent who still walks can reach a pharmacy on foot.

Elmora and the West End have more single-family houses, with stairs and long hallways. Peterstown, which longtime residents call the Burg, still gathers around Union Square, where a caregiver can walk your parent to the produce stands and meat markets. Bayway sits between the Elizabeth River and the Arthur Kill, and Elizabethport is down by the water.

Planning around the house

A caregiver's day changes with the address. A second-floor apartment with no elevator means planning every trip out. A big Elmora house means someone needs to be near the stairs at night. We see the house first, at a free assessment, and build the schedule around it.

For most of the city, the hospital is Trinitas Regional Medical Center at 225 Williamson Street, an RWJBarnabas Health hospital. Families also come home from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Rahway and from Overlook Medical Center in Summit.

When rehab comes first, it is often close by:

• Elmora Hills Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, 225 West Jersey Street
• Brother Bonaventure Extended Care and Rehabilitation Center, 655 East Jersey Street, affiliated with Trinitas, for sub-acute and long-term care

The first week back is usually the hardest, when the medication list has changed, the house hasn't, and the family member who slept in a chair at the hospital finally goes home. Hospital-to-home care covers that week: safe transfers, medication reminders, meals, bathing, and someone awake in the house at the hours a fall would otherwise go unnoticed.

We are non-medical. If your parent needs skilled nursing at home, that comes from a home health agency, and our caregivers can cover the hours between its visits.

Private care works best on top of what the city and county already fund. Before you pay for anything, these are worth a call:

• The City of Elizabeth Office on Aging runs four senior centers: Liberty, Peterstown, O'Donnell Dempsey and Stephen Sampson.
• Union County Division on Aging, right in the city at 10 Elizabethtown Plaza, (908) 527-4870. It is the county's Area Agency on Aging and the place to start for benefits screening, home-delivered meals and caregiver support.
• Union County Paratransit, (908) 241-8300. Curb-to-curb rides for residents 60 and over at $3 each way. Veterans can ride to the VA medical centers in East Orange on Mondays and Wednesdays and in Lyons on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Most of it runs on reservations made days ahead, and all of it closes in the evening. A caregiver covers what the schedule can't: the ride home from an appointment that ran late, help with bathing in the evening, the Saturday when nobody else is around. For a parent who is managing but alone too much, companion care a few afternoons a week can be enough.

Many families in Elizabeth speak Spanish, Portuguese or another language at home, and a parent with dementia often goes back to the first language they learned. Tell us what language is spoken in the house when you call, because a caregiver your loved one can't talk to is no help to them.

Care runs from a few hours a week to overnight care, live-in care and 24-hour support. Alzheimer's and dementia care keeps the day familiar, and personal care covers bathing, dressing and grooming.

Our Union County office is at 20 Jackson Drive in Cranford, and we call families back quickly. The office is led by two registered nurses who came to home care from emergency medicine; you can read their backgrounds. Families pay us directly, with no deposits or long-term contracts. If your parent has long-term care insurance, we file the claims and the policy reimburses you. See our payment options, or every Union County town we cover.