Senior living communities offer a lot, but many seniors are reluctant to join them.
A large portion of the elderly population is interested in aging in place.
To age in place means remaining in your home rather than moving to a smaller home or joining an assisted living community.
Much of the time, aging in place is only possible with round-the-clock professional care.
Full-Time In-Home Care Options
If you or your loved one needs assistance throughout all 24 hours of the day, you need to find caregivers that supply that level of support. Generally, there are three means by which this service is provided to seniors.
The options below operate with different schedules and variations in required personnel:
- Live-in care
- 24-hour care
- On-Call care
- Overnight care
On the surface, these titles appear to imply the same meaning. However, these forms of care are not redundant. Instead, they all involve individual strategies to provide the care seniors need.
Let’s have a closer look at these differences in care.
Live-in Care
Live-in care is likely what most people imagine when they think about full-time in-home care. For the sake of clarity, here is a detailed description of how live-in care works.
With this service, there is usually a single caregiver involved.
This caregiver will live in the senior’s home. The senior is responsible for providing a bed for the caregiver.
With this setup, the senior helper can assist the senior at any time of day or night.
The schedule for a live-in senior helper will look something like this:
- Four to five workdays per week
- 24-hour care on those workdays
- Eight hours allotted for sleep at night
Despite having a specific time slot for sleep, this sleep can be interrupted.
On all workdays, the caregiver assists on an as-needed basis.
This means that if the senior needs help in the middle of the night, the caregiver must respond accordingly.
The advantages of this care service are obvious. The older adult remains living in their home with help readily available at any time of day.
Additionally, there are benefits because this system typically calls for one helper to live in the home. This setup allows the senior and the caregiver a chance to develop a strong bond.
A live-in caregiver provides round-the-clock care on their workdays. But they also have days off. These days off are essential to the senior helper’s ability to restore their energy and continue giving much-needed care.
On those days off, another caregiver may fill in.
Alternatively, the senior’s family may take on some of the care responsibilities on those days as well.
That decision is based on the senior’s family’s preference and availability. While difficult, families with elderly relatives must make such decisions.
24-Hour Care
24-hour care offers the same, if not more, attention than live-in care. This high level of attention arises from the fact that 24-hour care involves more than one senior helper.
Most often, two to three caregivers will alternate shifts at the senior’s home.
When on duty, the caregivers usually remain awake, whether it is day or night. This means that the senior is not responsible for providing a sleeping area for the caregivers.
The caregivers’ shifts will vary in length based on how many are in the shift rotation. Most shifts are either eight or 12 hours long.
This care service option is great for seniors with the following conditions and behavior tendencies:
- Wandering
- Night-time wakefulness
- Mental or physical disabilities
24-hour care gives seniors attentive care at all hours. But there may be some drawbacks.
Considering there will be multiple rotating caregivers, the senior will be less likely to develop a close bond with their helper.
Costs for this care are also typically higher compared to live-in care.
Still, 24-hour care is a great option for care. Depending on the condition of the senior, this may be the only viable option.
On-Call Care
When a caregiver works on an on-call basis, they may or may not live in the senior’s home.
In either case, the caregiver likely provides assistance during the day. Nighttime is not considered working hours.
Even if the caregiver lives in the home full time, it does not mean they are working 24-hours each day. Their presence in the home at night is considered more of a safety measure.
If there is an emergency or the senior needs immediate attention at night, the caregiver is on- call.
In those scenarios, they will provide help. Otherwise, there is no expectation that the senior helper will be working at night.
Overnight Care
Overnight care is not a truly full-time form of service, but it is an option worth noting.
In some ways, it is an opposite version of on-call care. Rather than only helping during the day, overnight caregivers work primarily at night.
The typical process works like this:
- The caregiver arrives in the evening helping the senior prepare for bed
- The caregiver stays the night ready to attend to the senior as needed
- In the morning, the caregiver helps the senior with their start-of-day routine then leaves
This form of care is great for seniors who have help from other people, like friends and family, during the day.
