Paradise Valley Independent: What Families Caring for Aging Veterans Should Know, From Air Force Veteran and The Perfect Companion Founder Jon Siegel
Jon Siegel, founder and president of The Perfect Companion and a former U.S. Air Force captain and biomedical science officer, shared in the Paradise Valley Independent what he learned from working with veterans and how families can support aging veterans today. For families looking for in-home senior care for a parent who served, his message was clear: “Be proactive.”
In a Q&A with reporter Allison Kotzbauer, Siegel described how the military taught him what teamwork in care should look like. A psychiatrist, nurse, social worker, psychologist and discharge planner all worked toward the same goal. “Nobody operated alone,” he told the Paradise Valley Independent. He said that lesson became the thinking behind The Perfect Companion: “The best care happens when the whole person is understood and everyone around them is pulling in the same direction.”
Siegel said leaving the military is one of the hardest transitions a person goes through, and that many veterans he worked with didn’t know how to build a civilian life. “Independence, which sounds like a gift, was a hard adjustment,” he said. He also pointed out that each generation came home to very different treatment, and that it can show up decades later. “That’s why we never treat an older adult as a diagnosis or an age,” Siegel said. “Every person has a history that shapes how they want to live now, and good care starts by understanding it.”
The biggest challenge he sees for aging veterans today is the quality of care. “They made the great sacrifice, and they deserve the highest quality of care,” he said. Their needs change over time, he explained, and “they need someone who knows them well and notices the small changes early.”
His advice for families is to look into the benefits their veteran has earned, including VA Aid and Attendance, and to ask more than one source. “Don’t take the first answer as the final answer,” Siegel said. He suggested families call their congressman’s or senator’s office for help finding benefits they may not know exist. For Paradise Valley, his idea is simple: “Start with one veteran.”
Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, The Perfect Companion is a private-pay, concierge-level in-home senior care company founded in 2008 by Jon Siegel. The company serves families in the Phoenix, Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennessee, areas, pairing caregivers with clients through a proprietary psychosocial matching process and a hospitality-first philosophy modeled on the Ritz-Carlton. For more information, visit The Perfect Companion on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or the website.
