Classic care
Employment for senior care specialists continues to expand
Linda Pantko was a beautician for more than 20 years. “It’s the first job I ever had. I used to wash hair at a salon (at Milwaukee and Division Streets in Chicago) from when I was in high school and then that turned into a job cutting hair until the shop closed about 10 years ago,” says the 47-year-old resident of Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood.
After cutting hair at her home for a few years, Pantko spoke to a friend who was working for a home health care agency and became interested in the job.
“In Europe there is a strong culture of taking care of parents as they get older but in the United States people work so much that they don’t always have the time to take care of their mom and dad,” says Pantko, who was born in Poland and moved to the United States with her family in 1978. “After talking to some friends who were doing jobs as home health care aides, I realized that that was something I would enjoy. My parents are both deceased and most of my family is still back in Poland so in some ways I feel like it is part of my responsibility to help with older people.”
Pantko worked for two different agencies doing home care and also with an assisted-living facility in Chicago’s Jefferson Park. “I enjoy the facility work more because you can interact with the residents and with other aides and nurses,” she says. “When you provide services at home, you are the only person there and you can feel a little bit of loneliness for your senior. In a home, there are always activities and there are always people coming and going. I like that aspect of it much more.”
Pantko is one of many Americans who are turning to careers in senior care, a growing field of health care employment. “I don’t know if there is a ceiling yet to senior care,” says Jonathan Baker, a job analyst who worked for the U.S. Department of Labor. “The country’s population will continue to age. It is an unstoppable trend.”
The market for senior caregivers is projected to grow through at least 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Beyond basic care
In both assisted-living facilities and personal residences, a need exists for various health care professionals, including home health aides, nurses, physical therapists, physicians and others.
Health care workers who interact with seniors can provide a variety of services, including administering medications, checking a patient’s vital signs, like pulse rate and temperature, helping with daily exercises, maintaining a patient’s surroundings, helping patients move from their beds to other areas of the house and washing and dressing patients each day. At the high end of senior care, nurses and physicians may assist patients with complex medical equipment such as dialysis machines or ventilators.
Although most home health care workers engage with several patients at a time, each lasting a few hours, days or weeks, others visit multiple patients on the same day. In some cases, home health caregivers go to a patient’s home for months or even years at a time.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government enforces guidelines for home health caregivers whose employers receive reimbursement from Medicare, requiring home health aides to pass a competency test covering a wide range of areas, including: communication; record keeping; reading and recording vital signs; basic infectioncontrol procedures; basic bodily functions; emergency procedures; personal hygiene; normal range of motion and positioning; and basic nutrition.
Gratifying work
For Pantko, Some of the benefits of senior care go beyond the paycheck. I really do enjoy working with older people. I get a lot of Polish immigrants because I can speak the language and it is amazing how much that can brighten their day,” she says. “People love to talk to me about Poland or about Chicago or about anything really, and they especially love to do it in Polish.”
Pantko says her daughter and her son have taken an interest in her work, “but they have taken it to the next level,” she says. Her oldest son is currently studying medicine at the University of Miami and her oldest daughter is currently a nurse at Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago.
“I used to think that Americans were selfish with their time and that they didn’t want to spend that time with their parents but then I realized that in this country, you need to work long hours to stay ahead, so really, you don’t have time to provide all that care,” Pantko says. “I feel like what I do is important, even if it’s just sitting next to someone’s bed and talking about Poland or about what’s on TV. I can be a way for older people to stay connected.”