Rebecca Lindsey from Reno was recently selected as the Right at Home 2025 Northwest Central Region Caregiver of the Year, out of thousands of caregivers in 13 states. She works for the Reno branch of the national chain, which offers in-home care for seniors and others with disabilities, as well as hospice care and cognitive care. Learn more at www.rightathome.net/reno.
Why did you get into the care business?
My background is actually in medical reception. Caregiving for me began in 2007, when a veteran neighbor had trouble caring for themselves. I offered to help on a weekly basis. I helped my mother pass in 2015 from brain cancer. I did the same thing with my husband in 2018 with his terminal disease. I felt the community could benefit from my strength and experience.
What kind of training do you need to be a caregiver?
Life experience. There’s not much training for caregiving. We have continuing-education classes, and they’re handled through Home Care Pulse training, which is an app. We do CPR training online as well. You need to have CPR training. You have to know about elder abuse, and you have to know how to bathe the elderly, and you have to know how to keep them safe from falls, different stuff like that.
What is your typical day like?
I do in-home care, so it’s a little more personal. I do all the meal prep for my client, cooking, grocery shopping and laundry. The list goes on and on. Most of my time is spent on client interaction, from foot soaks to physical home exercises to help them maintain strength. I leave my house at 9:30 a.m. My client doesn’t wake up until 10, and he doesn’t wake up right away, so I do what are called silent chores. I do everything I can do before he gets up, because when he gets up, I like to be able to serve his plate of food to him within five minutes. He likes his news, so I turn on the TV. He is very involved with his routine and his structure that I’ve created. I get home by 6:30 every day.
Tell me a story about one of your clients who is particularly interesting.
One of my clients was sent home from the hospital to pass away, and the family was struggling with grief. Once, I asked him what his interests were, and he said baseball and gambling. I showed them how to help him thrive, and he lived a whole year longer. I found a way to stimulate him. He likes to gamble, so I put the cards in his hand, and he wasn’t sure how to shuffle, so I did the shuffle motion with him, and we started doing it, and he kept trying to sit up so that he could hold the cards. His son just happened to walk down the hall, and he saw me doing that, and he stopped, and he started crying. He said that none of the other caregivers ever had given his dad that type of attention. He loved more than anything to play card games—not just gamble, but a lot of card games. I turned on baseball one day, and he was mumbling, “Go Giants,” under his breath, and I said, “Did your dad like the San Francisco Giants?” So I went to Burlington (Coat Factory), and I found some Giants stuff, like a neck pillow. I used the pillows to help him from getting bed sores, and that was one of the compliments I got from the hospice nurses, that they’ve never had a client who was bed for a year and not having bed sores. You just have to keep turning the client.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I would like to get some higher-ranking credentials behind my name, and I’d possibly become self-employed with my own company. We’re non-medical caregivers, so we can’t even distribute medications. When I go to memory-care facilities, I see some of the ladies who are med techs, and that’s a higher credential. I don’t have that kind of credential behind me, and I have a friend saying, “Why stop there? Why don’t you get your LPN (licensed practical nurse degree)?” I talked with a personal caregiver who runs her own company, and she said that I should be self-employed, and she said, “You’re amazing.” I’d like to become independent and further my education and possibly become an LPN.