Quick Answer
Personal care fits older adults who stay at home but need support with bathing, dressing, or using the bathroom safely. At Dignified Choice Care, a registered nurse builds a personal care plan according to your parent’s needs and preferences. Each shift runs at least four hours and may extend as your parent’s needs grow.
Personal Care Services That Support Your Parents at Home
Personal care services give your parents in the Twin Cities hands-on support with bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and other everyday self-care tasks. They let your parents keep living in their own home when parts of the day have gotten harder. Your mom can still pick out what she wants to wear but needs help getting her arms into a sweater. Your dad might be comfortable washing himself with a steady arm guiding him into the shower.
A trained caregiver steps into those difficult moments while your parents run their day the way they like. Dignified Choice Care builds personal care visits around the tasks your parents want help with. Each visit follows a care plan a registered nurse writes after meeting your mom and learning about how her day goes.
Walk Us Through a Morning at Your Parent’s Home
Tell us how your mom likes her mornings and we’ll discuss where a caregiver would help most.
How a Personal Caregiver Helps Your Parents at Home
A personal caregiver helps your mom with activities of daily living, like getting out of bed, washing, dressing, toileting, and moving around the house. The caregiver works alongside her, not around her. She may want someone nearby while she stands up and help when it’s time to put on her shoes.
Personal care is non-medical. Caregivers do not change wound dressings or give injections; a nurse handles those on separate visits. Each visit runs at least four hours, which means your mom or dad will still have time for an outside walk after their morning shower.
Help With Daily Care at Your Parent’s Pace
Personal care follows your parent’s pace and how they prefer to run the day. In-home personal care for seniors is one-on-one. The caregiver learns how your dad likes things done: a shower before breakfast, his own razor, and wearing a flannel shirt on Sundays. He keeps doing what he can, and the caregiver steps in only when he needs it.
The riskiest moments at home also get safer. Bathing, toileting, and getting out of bed get steady support. Wet floors, low seats, and quick turns get another set of eyes, to help reduce falls. A caregiver is there for those moments, and any change in routine or your mom’s health is noticed and shared sooner.
A regular visit can also take some of that hands-on work off your plate. If you’ve been helping your mom take a shower, handing that job to a trained caregiver can be easier on both of you. You can sit down with her for lunch without squeezing those tasks in each visit.
Tell Us What Your Dad Wants to Keep Doing on His Own
We will build a care plan around the routines he prefers to handle himself.
In-Home Personal Support That Meets Your Parent’s Journey
In-home personal support can meet your parents in their later years and change as their needs do. Each care plan adjusts as their routine changes.
For Aging Parents: Buttons, zippers, and climbing out of the tub may take longer than they used to. A caregiver supports the hard steps and lets your parent do the rest.
You Live Far Away from Your Parents: A caregiver supports your dad during bathing and dressing on set days. You get each month’s schedule one to two weeks ahead.
Your Parent is Living with Dementia or Alzheimer’s: Dressing can feel upsetting when memory loss makes the next steps confusing. Caregivers learn your parent’s specific cues, and our Dementia Care builds on your parent’s specific care plan.
Your Parent is Coming Home After a Hospital Stay: The first weeks at home mean extra help with showering and getting in and out of bed. We provide Transition Home / Post-Rehabilitation Support with additional hours early, then scale back as your dad recovers.
Your Parent Is Nearing the End of Life: Our End of Life Care means trained caregivers work alongside your parent’s hospice team. We support your parent’s bathing and comfort between hospice visits, and any changes are reported to the hospice nurse right away.
Personal Care for Bathing, Dressing, Meals, and Moving Around
In-home personal care covers the main activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, meals, and moving around. Medication reminders and skilled nursing support are added when your parent’s needs require them.
Toileting and Bathing Help
Trained caregivers help your parents with showers, sponge baths, and safely getting on and off the toilet. They provide a steady arm for your dad on wet floors and wash the spots he can’t reach. Incontinence care is handled privately and without fuss.
Dressing and Grooming
Dressing and grooming help covers clothes, shoes, hair, shaving, and teeth or denture care. Your parents still select their preferred outfit while the caregiver helps with buttons, socks, and anything that involves bending.
Mealtime and Feeding Support
Trained caregivers prepare meals following your parent’s diet and tastes, then sit with them while they eat. If holding utensils has become hard, the caregiver helps with feeding at your parent’s pace.
Posture, Mobility, and Safe Transfers
Caregivers help your parents get out of bed, into a chair, or around the house. A transfer is any move from one surface to another, like a bed to their wheelchair. If your parent sits and reclines most of the day, caregivers also help change their position to protect the skin from pressure sores.
Medication Reminders
Caregivers remind your parents when it’s time for medications and note whether they were taken. A nurse sets up the medications first, and the caregiver follows that plan instead of personally sorting pills.
Skilled Nursing Needs
A nurse can also provide skilled care services, such as wound care or feeding tube management. When your dad needs both nursing and in-home personal care, we explain who handles each task and discuss any nursing fee up front.
Each care plan is adjusted as your parent’s needs grow. Overnight or 24 hour home care is also available for aging seniors who need support when they wander at night or get confused in the late afternoons.
What Goes Into the Cost of Personal Care at Home?
The cost of in-home personal care depends on how many hours a week your parent needs help. An accurate estimate comes from learning your parent’s daily routine.
Hours per Visit: Personal care services are billed by the hour, so longer shifts raise the total cost.
Visits per Week: Support on select bathing days costs differently from help in getting dressed every morning. We will discuss how each schedule differs.
Whether Routine Tasks are Included: Bathing, toileting, dressing, and incontinence care are planned under the same hourly rate, with no add-on fees.
Time of Day and Week: Evening, overnight, and regular weekend shifts add hours to the total estimate.
Nurse Services: Nurse medication setups are billed at the standard hourly rate. Skilled nursing, like wound care, has its own fee. Any nursing fee is talked through before care starts.
One-time Setup Fee. A one-time setup fee applies when care starts, then one hourly rate follows the care plan.
During a free in-home consultation, we can walk you through what a typical week with your parent will look like. Our team will answer your concerns and explain what a proposed schedule would cost.
Trained Caregivers for Your Parent’s Personal Needs
Dignified Choice Care is licensed by the Minnesota Department of Health as a comprehensive home care provider. We are a family-owned team and arrange both personal care and skilled nursing when your parent needs both.
When we assign a new caregiver, a nurse or trainer accompanies them during the first visit and makes the introduction. Nobody walks in as a stranger. Your mom can show them how she likes the bathroom set up and where she keeps the clothes she wears most often.
We hire certified nursing assistants (CNAs), retired nurses, and physical therapists, which goes beyond what Minnesota requires of home care workers. They bring real experience with hands-on care tasks, and each caregiver learns your parent’s own care plan, not just a general checklist.
What Families Share About Help With Daily Care
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“Dignified choice cared for my Dad for two years during Covid. We were able to keep my Dad in his home and surrounded by family. My Dad loved his caregiver. We were so thankful that my Dad was so well cared for and we had full confidence that Dignified choice was respectful and loving towards my Dad. Whenever we had a question, they were there to help”
– Theresa K., Verified Customer
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“Dignified Choice is absolutely wonderful. I would definitely recommend them and trust them to care for your loved ones. 10 out of 10. They were super when they cared for my dad!!!!!!!!!”
– Mary D., Verified Customer
Ask How the First Caregiving Visit Would Work
Personal Support for Families Across the Twin Cities
Dignified Choice Care provides personal care services across the Twin Cities metro. Our caregivers and nurses work with families in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Edina, Eden Prairie, Eagan, and Woodbury.
Our home office is in Burnsville, but our caregivers travel across the metro. Share where your parent lives and when they usually need help.
Personal Care Services FAQs
Is a Personal Care Assistant (PCA) the Same as a Caregiver?
Not quite. In Minnesota, a personal care assistant (PCA) usually means help paid through Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s Medicaid program. The state began replacing that program with Community First Services and Supports (CFSS) in October 2024. Dignified Choice Care is a private home care service, accepting private pay and long-term care insurance.
Does Personal Care Cost More Than Companion Care?
It can, depending on your parent’s care needs and weekly hours. Personal care and companion care may be priced differently, and we explain both during the consultation. Many families mix both. If your parent mostly needs company and help getting out of the house, companion care may be the better place to start.
How Long Does Help with Bathing and Dressing Take?
Personal care support with showering, dressing, and grooming often takes about an hour, or sometimes longer, depending on your parent’s pace and comfort level. As shifts run at least four hours, the caregiver never rushes your parents through it.
What if My Mom Doesn’t Want Help with Bathing?
That’s totally normal and understandable. Many older adults may hesitate to accept support in bathing at first. Each caregiver starts with showering assistance your mom is comfortable with. That might mean preparing towels and waiting just outside the door. The nurse writes your mom’s preferences into the care plan, like a warm bath at night instead of the morning, and every caregiver follows them.
Will Long-Term Care Insurance Pay for Personal Care?
Often, yes. Many long-term care insurance policies pay for in-home care once an aging senior needs help with two or more daily activities, like bathing and dressing. Severe memory loss that requires supervision can also qualify, depending on the policy. Each insurance policy has its own waiting period and limit. Dignified Choice Care can walk through your parent’s coverage with you.
Plan a Personal Care Plan Around Your Parent’s Day
Planning personal care starts with a free in-home consultation shaped around your parent’s day. We’ll set up a time to talk through which parts of your mom’s daily routine need help.
Reach out to our team or send a short form through our contact page. Our phone line is answered 24/7. A registered nurse then visits to build the care plan.