Home Health Aide

Service Description

Home Health Aides help people who are disabled, chronically ill, cognitively impaired, and older adults, who may need assistance, to live in their own homes or in residential facilities (i.e., Assisted Living Facilities) instead of in health facilities or institutions. They also assist people in hospices and day programs and help individuals with disabilities go to work and remain engaged in their communities. Aides work with elderly, physically, and mentally disabled clients who need more care than family or friends can provide. Additionally, aides help patients who are discharged from the hospital and have relatively short-term needs. Aides provide light housekeeping and homemaking tasks such as laundry, change bed linens, shop for food, and plan and prepare meals. Aides also may help clients get out of bed, bathe, dress, groom, and may also accompany clients to doctors’ appointments or on other errands. Home health aides may provide some basic health related services, such as checking patients’ pulse rate, temperature, and respiration rate. They also may help with simple prescribed exercises, assist only self-directing patients with medications administration, change simple dressings, provide skin care, or assist with braces and artificial limbs.