What is Senior Home Care?

Senior home care is a fairly broad term that refers to a variety of health related services provided in the home setting. Home care is health care brought to your home to maintain or restore your health and well-being. Caregivers and Aides play a crucial role in improving the quality of life for those who are not chronically ill, yet require some type of supervision and assistance.

There are two types of home care services available, Medical home care and Non-Medical home care:

Medical Senior Home Care - Medical Home Care provides the services of professional doctors, nurses and nurse-assistants and is ideal for those who are chronically ill and require constant medical care. This can be a costly affair as compared to the non-medical home care services, since most professionals must be registered nurses or nurses' assistants.

As the caregivers are professionals with medicine background, they may not be performing light housekeeping tasks. If looking for companionship, medical home caregivers are not suitable as they rarely have the opportunity to build long relationships with their clients. Often a different professional appears every week, which prevents establishing a bond between the seniors and their caregiver.

Non-Medical Senior Home Care - Non-medical Home Care is designed to help the seniors with the tasks of everyday living. This service is cheap as compared to the medical home care. Non-medical caregivers do not assist with medical procedures.

These caregivers can help seniors maintain their independence by taking over the daily tasks that become increasingly difficult with age. They can take the client grocery shopping or to the bank, prepare meals, do light housekeeping and provide daily conversation and most importantly companionship.

Vast majority of children are thousands of miles away from their parents and are unable to provide the required assistance and seniors prefer to stay in the comfort of their own homes and surroundings and do not wish to settle down in the retirement homes. But they need assistance and hence senior home care service industry is flourishing.

Return to Senior Care Articles