In-home care for an aging parent

What home care usually covers

• Company and conversation, and somebody noticing when something is off.
• Meals, light housekeeping, laundry and errands.
• Help with bathing, dressing, the toilet and getting around the house.
• Medication reminders, and getting to appointments.
• Standby help with walkers, wheelchairs and transfers.

Decide these before you start looking

• Which days and hours need covering, and whether nights matter.
• Whether the help is company and household, hands-on personal care, or medical tasks.
• The languages spoken at home, and anything about your parent's temperament that matters.
• What you can spend each week, and for how long you expect to need help.

The kind of caregiver to look for

Company, meals and errands are often handled by a companion caregiver. Hands-on personal care is the everyday work of home health aides and certified nursing assistants. Giving medication, injections or wound care is for a nurse, or a medication-certified aide where your state allows it.

How Kalvri helps you find them

Kalvri is an iPhone app, not an agency. You say what the care really looks like, and Kalvri ranks every caregiver whose hours, skills, languages, distance and rate fit, with the reason each one was chosen. Each morning it suggests the one who fits best.

• What you require comes first. Everyone who can cover your hours, your budget and the care you described is ranked ahead of anyone who can't, and somebody who has said no to something you need is never suggested.
• Each caregiver arrives with the reason they were chosen, in plain words. What they told Kalvri is labelled as theirs, because Kalvri verifies nothing.
• When you both say yes, a private conversation opens. Ask for references, ask for a time, and decide for yourself.
• You agree the rate with your caregiver and pay them directly. Kalvri takes no fee and no cut.