It will depend on how much personal time you have and what you are planning on doing. Just cleaning. Bathing a couple of times a week. Fixing meals so that they have something that they can just heat and eat. Doing laundry. Grocery shopping. Lawn work. Making certain any repairs that are needed are done. This could be just making certain that the lightbulbs are working to having the roof fixed. Expect to pay for some if not all of these things unless they have large incomes and investments. If home health or cleaning services are used making certain they are doing what they should be doing. Can start being only a short period every two weeks or so then become needed every day.

One major thing is to have POA's drawn up and take/send to any financial institution. Then use the online products that they have. Change to electronic statements. This will allow you to handle things at your home when you want to. Also no lost bills or statements. Do download to your own files the statements. If they would ever need to apply for Medicaid you will have some of the documents needed to prove large expenditures were for them.

Thanks! How much time a week did YOU spend?

24/7 and 12 I was live in plus assisted my Dad. What I wrote was to give you some suggestions of what you would be doing. You would know how long it would take to do those in your own home so you already know how long it will take in another's home. Good luck but do not forget to add travel time.

A word or two of caution. Unless there is a lot of money in the family, never promise that the patient won't ever have to go into a 'home' (whatever that means.) If extended care is necessary, that may mean assisted living accommodations. Or it might mean moving into a low maintenance apartment, whether senior-oriented or not, just to get rid of property maintenance.

No one really wants to leave a long-time home, but sometimes it is not possible to stay there. Don't put yourself or other caregivers into that corner. It only increases the guilt and doubt and resentment when/if the time does come.

My mother lived in a place that was independent living, an apartment with meals plus cleaning services and some transportation, lots of activities. Luckily they offered more assisted living services that she needed in the last 6 months of her life. Despite all that, I was on call 24/7. I was about 20 minutes away. She's call me before she called staff, little things like when she hit the wrong button on the TV remote (to switch to VCR) and couldn't figure out how to get back to TV. We had to come to an agreement, not without trial and error, that we'd do shopping and errands on a couple of days, and not on-call. So she'd understand that just because she went to the grocery store on Monday, she didn't need a separate trip to the drug store on Tuesday, She had to understand that I needed some advance notice, and that I had my own things to do every day.

Hope this helps.

You are correct sushi being a caregiver is a 24 hour job. Not something that you can say I am going to spend an hour or longer a week with someone. Each situation is different and as I posted above you have to measure the time that it takes you to do tasks in your own home. You will then have to add additional time because the person you are caring from either wants to help or is in your way.

When people start to fall or injure themselves staying at home may be taken out of their hands for their own safety.