Extended Family Home Care is all about quality in-home senior care and one of the many services we provide is senior transportation services. We offer professional caregiving services tailored to fit your loved one’s needs so they can live comfortably and independently in their own home. Our compassionate caregivers perform services with professionalism and dignity. You have the peace of mind knowing that your elder loved one enjoys caring companionship and is treated like family. Transportation is the critical link that assures access to vital services such as healthcare and going to the grocery store. The availability of safe and reliable transportation allows seniors to live independently in their communities and helps prevent isolation and premature institutionalization. Extended Family Home Care provides incidental senior transportation services for seniors.
Our caregivers help you get where you want to go! Whether it is a hair appointment, doctor’s appointment, or errands and shopping, our caregivers help you get where you want to go.
We provide more than just a ride! We are not a taxi or bus service. Our caregivers provide incidental transportation in conjunction with our companionship services. Caregivers are trained in assisting elder clients getting in and out of the car safely. We do not just pick a client up and drop them off at their destination. Rather, our caregivers help them get ready, accompany them to the appointment, take notes (if requested), stay with them until they are ready to leave, and then take them back home. We make sure they are settled back in at home and ready to safely resume their activities.
We can arrange to provide what is needed. We prefer at least a 24-hour notice to help with scheduling. However, we provide services on short-notice when needed. We can provide service for a single occassion, or on a regular schedule, seven days a week including holidays. All Extended Family Home Care caregivers are bonded & insured.
Caregivers assist with the following:
- Doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions
- Medical procedures and testing
- Hairdresser/barber appointments
- Religious services
- Visits with friends and family
- Activities & Outings (theatre, concerts, museums…)
- Lectures
- Family events (weddings, birthdays, graduations, reunions…)
- Shopping (grocery shopping & general shopping)
- Errands (pick up prescriptions, dry cleaners…)
Losing the independence of driving is becoming more and more commonplace as we live longer. In some cities, public transportation is a reasonable mode of getting around, but for most of us, we’ll need a car. There are plenty of services out there that can get people from Point A to Point B. Getting here to there is the extent of what taxis will do for you. They don’t necessarily help people in and out and remember to check if any belongings have been left behind.
Seniors Need Help
Senior drivers are relatively safe drivers because they use their seat belts and receive few citations for speeding or reckless driving. In fact, the number of accidents involving older drivers decreases as age increases. This is partially attributed to the fact that many older drivers avoid driving during rush-hour, at night or in inclement weather. Seniors generally drive significantly fewer miles than younger drivers. However, there are safety concerns for elderly drivers, such as taking prescription drugs, existing medical conditions, reduced reaction time and overall physical decline that increase the risk of being involved in a collision, particularly after the age of 75. Fatalities increase to some small degree after the age of 65 and significantly after the age of 75. The rate increase is primarily due to the increased failure to survive physical trauma that commonly occurs with age.
Leaving important identification behind is an innocent mistake we can make as we juggle doctors appointments, medications and all of our other responsibilities. It’s also just the tip of the iceberg. After leaving the taxi, getting to the right place at the right time in a massive health complex can be daunting. If everything has gone smoothly, those who need the care are also burdened with remembering everything the doctor said and following up with the appropriate actions. Prescriptions need to be filled, recommendations followed and further appointments scheduled.
There are some guidelines that may help elderly drivers drive more safely. It is important to understand the side effects of any medications they are taking and if they might reduce their ability to react when behind the wheel. Nighttime driving should be reduced whenever possible, especially due to the glare of headlights on approaching vehicles. Vision should be checked routinely to ensure that vision loss doesn’t impair driving safely. Cataracts is common with aging and should be carefully monitored. To minimize the impact of visual limitations, it is recommended that elder drivers drive in familiar locations, avoid night driving, particularly in inclement weather.
Getting back and forth is really just the easy part. Our transportation services do more than assist patients entering and exiting the car and get to the appointment on time. We also either wait in the waiting room or go into the appointment. Some children of aging parents request that we listen carefully and take good notes to share with them. Most of our patients have multiple physicians. We make sure they are at an appointment on time and follow up visits are scheduled as needed.
Caregivers Need Help
Transporting and assisting our loved ones to and from doctors appointments can quickly fill your schedule. You have a life to contend with too. Taxiing your loved one to and from doctors appointments will be part of it, but it doesn’t have to be all of it. If you would like assistance in transporting your loved one to medical appointments, we can help.
Even though it is an extremely difficult choice, most elders decide for themselves when it is time to stop driving. If this is not the case and you are a caregiver for an elder, you may have to step in and make an assessment of your elder’s driving ability. If you make the decision that it is time for them to stop driving, the downside may be that your responsibilities to your elder increase significantly due to transportation needs of your elder. Extended Family Home Care is here to help. Let us take your elderly loved one to appointments, grocery shopping and errands, or out to visit friends. Our in-home caregivers provide senior transportation services and they are experienced, professional and meet our highest expectations. Our team of caregivers love what they do and it shows in the quality of care our clients receive.
