Life assistant: facilitating the daily life of vulnerable people

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Extract from the article: Older people may need care at home when they are frail or weak, especially after discharge from hospital or rehabilitation facilities. Simple care is usually provided by family members or friends. For more complex care, Rosalie Benthywa Johnson, Dire

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Older people may need care at home when they are frail or weak, especially after discharge from hospital or rehabilitation facilities. Simple care is usually provided by family members or friends. For more complex care, Rosalie Benthywa Johnson, Director of Personal Assistance Service at Home and in hospitals of the NGO VISA (SADH-VISA), stresses the need for a professional, in particular a home and hospital care assistant or life assistant, to ensure the well-being and safety of these frail people.

At present, this profession, life assistant, can be exercised by both men and women. The job of home and hospital care assistant or life assistant consists of accompanying and helping people in their daily lives, providing them with physical and moral assistance. « It is a person who has been trained to provide assistance to people who need it, such as the elderly, the handicapped and dependent people who can no longer manage on their own. This is due to their loss of autonomy », said Rosalie Benthywa Johnson, Director of the Home and Hospital Care Service of the NGO International Volunteers for Health Promotion in Africa (VISA).

What are the tasks of the life assistant?

The life assistant provides material, moral, social or health care services to enable the independent elderly person or the person in need to remain at home. The life assistant is at the service of elderly people in a situation of loss of autonomy and dependence which can, sometimes, be significant. The tasks entrusted to them are many and varied. « Their role is to take care of the administrative paperwork (bills, files), manage food shopping, buy medicines at the pharmacy, and maintain the home. He/she also has the duty to prepare meals, taking into account the rules of healthy eating and the constraints that may exist depending on the person, to accompany the person in his/her movements and in all daily activities and in social activities. The life assistant's social role is to break the isolation in which the person may find him or herself », stressed the director of SADH-VISA.

Life assistants can determine whether people are receiving the services they need and recommend additional services if necessary. They can also help with travel arrangements to medical appointments.

Difficulties encountered

In carrying out her duties, the carer encounters difficulties. « It is a difficult job when the working conditions are not favourable or if the family is demanding and stressful. It requires time to think about certain cases such as Alzheimer's. You have to be physically fit and have a good sense of humour.  You have to be physically and mentally fit. Adopting good gestures for those who have lost their mobility, for example, you have to carry them to wash, get up, lie down and get dressed », says Rosalie Benthywa Johnson.

How to become a life assistant?

« To become a life assistant, you have to train as a personal assistant or life assistant. You also need to have qualities such as being dynamic and responsive, being autonomous in your work, being physically fit and knowing how to adapt. You also need to be a good listener and have good interpersonal skills to create links with the people you care for », advised Rosalie Benthywa Johnson, Director of the Home and Hospital Care Service of the NGO VISA.

Very often, the life assistant works in the home of the individual. However, sometimes they are employed in a collective structure in a private space. This type of structure has recently developed and is regularly looking for professionals. The life assistant can also be employed by communal social action centres.

Raymond DZAKPATA