A home care aide helps elderly and disabled persons in the activities of daily living. S/he assists clients at their residence or at day time elderly care centers.
A list of Homecare aide skills will not only help you prepare well for the career but also come in handy when writing your resume. It is highly advisable to match your skills and qualifications against a list of job-specific skills before you start composing your resume.
The exercise may be tedious, going through various skills for the job, prioritizing these, and then accommodating the same on your resume, but it is worth all the trouble because the resulting resume will be a highly focused one.
Following are some skills needed for the position of home care aide.
Home Care Aide Skills and Abilities
This is a sensitive job and only highly skilled individuals qualify for this position. To become eligible for the position, candidates have to demonstrate the following skills:
Personal Care
• Building a good rapport with the client
• Talking to the client, listening compassionately, and spending quality time with the client
• Ensuring daily objects of client’s use are in reach, these may include glass, water, book, glasses, newspaper, or any other object the client may need
Meal Preparation and Feeding
• Catering for client’s preferences and balancing them with client’s dietary requirements in the food being served
• Alternating the food recipes to create variety keeping client preferences on priority
• Seating the client in an upright position before the beginning of feeding
• Fixing a napkin while feeding and removal of the same at the end of the meal
Administering Medication
• Administering oral/ food pipe-based scheduled medication administration on time, in the correct amounts as per the given chart
Walking and exercising the client
• Ensuring ample exercise for the client, especially after meals
• Providing manual exercises of limbs and neck in bedridden clients
• Ensuring side and angle change in clients who cannot leave the bed
Hygiene
• Regular and proper bathing of client
• Wiping the face and hands after every meal
• Nail trimming
• Hair combing and brushing
• Teeth and denture cleaning
Assisting the clients in the bathroom / with a catheter
• Assisting the client in using the bathroom
• Ensuring hygienic emptying and timely replacement of the catheter
Dressing Assistance
• Ensuring neat and clean dressing of the client
• Assisting in change of clothes, buttoning and unbuttoning
Respecting client’s privacy
• Respecting clients privacy and maintaining dignity at all times, by all means
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