We are hiring Companion Care 24/7- seven days a week, around the clock. I live in Pennsylvania and they care for my mom in Seattle, so they have been very helpful for us. There are a few things they could improve, but overall we are satisfied. The most difficult problem is something they can't correct because it is Washington state law. They just changed the law so that one caregiver can only work a maximum of three days, which means we now have to have three caregivers in our rotation instead of two. They can't do anything about that because it's state law.

As far as the care they provide, I think it is very mixed. One of our caregivers is absolutely excellent, one is very good, and we actually just had to let another one go because she wasn't doing much of anything. Her care was barely adequate; it wasn't as good as the other two. It is a very uneven quality of help. The two good caregivers, however, have a very caring attitude with my mother. They have a good rapport with her, they treat her well, and they seem to really care about her. They help her around the house, cook for her, and see that she gets to bed at night. I was lead to believe that all the caregivers could and would cook, but I have found that the cooking doesn't live up to what they promised. We worked around it, but I think they could improve their cooking skills. I also think that the caregivers should be made to read the list we put together. Companion Care puts out a list of what the caregivers are expected to do. We, as the clients, help work out this list of responsibilities in the beginning. I think they could stand to review this list once in a while.

Overall, we are basically satisfied. Two of the caregivers are excellent and very caring. We have also enjoyed working with Paulina very much; she has been very cooperative on the office side. Most people in my mom's situation have somebody in town, but they have been very good about communicating with us and taking care of our needs as far as my mom is concerned. They have had to do all kinds of extra things that usually the family would do- forwarding mail, grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions, etc. We depend on them for almost all of her total care. Companion Care has been very helpful while we have had this long-distance relationship with me in PA.