What Are the Goals of Participant Assistance and Care?
Participant Assistance and Care, often abbreviated as PAC, is a part of residential habilitation services. Residential habilitation is a way for people with developmental disabilities to learn and to master skills that foster both independence and greater confidence. These services can help your family member to feel much better able to do even simple things that other people take for granted.
Offering Support and Care
The main goal of PAC is to offer support and assistance to your family member. The help that your family member needs may vary over time and from one situation to another. The beauty of PAC is that it can meet your family member where she is now and assist her in the ways that she needs most right at this given moment.
Help with Basic Skills
Basic skills, like getting up by a certain time, getting dressed, and general grooming, may still be difficult for your family member. That can be especially true if there’s a time limit involved that she’s not used to accommodating. These are skills that your family member is going to need for a long time to come, and it may be possible that she’s able to master them to the point of only needing occasional prompting and assistance.
Transfer Assistance to and from a Wheelchair
If your family member uses a wheelchair, or even another type of assistive device for mobility, she may need assistance transferring from her assistance device to bed and back. It can be difficult to master all of the different steps that have to be done properly in order to transfer safely.
Learning these steps in the right order and having the help that she needs keeps your family member as safe as possible.
Community Activities Assistance
Just because your family member has developmental challenges, that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to be involved in the community activities going on around her. Having help, from transportation to communication assistance while out, can be a huge part of making those outings successful for your family member. She may find that she’s able to do things out in her community that she didn’t expect to be able to do.
Habilitation services are a huge part of ensuring that your family member’s quality of life is a priority. PAC is just one of the ways that they’re able to do that for her on a regular basis.
If you are considering participant assistance & care in Carmel, IN, please call the caring staff at RSI Cares. Serving Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: 317-471-0750.
As a practicing Registered Nurse, Etelka was keenly aware of a void in quality patient care that could be provided in the home. She embarked upon a journey to develop a home health care agency that would exceed all expectations and become a trusted partner to physicians and patients.
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where shewasthe In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
Etelka was honored as a “Health Care Hero” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The issue can be read online here:
http://mags.ibj.com/activemagazine/welcome/html/ibjhch.html.
After clicking on the link, then click on the image of the issue’s front page. After that, you can browse through the issue or click in a box near the top of your internet browser to adjust the page to 17, which is where Etelka’s article appears.
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