Honoring Home Care Aides: The Heart and Soul of Caregaiving

Home care aides provide vital personal care and supportive services to our nation's elderly, chronically and terminally ill, and persons with disabilities. Guided by compassion and a commitment to caring, they make it possible for society's most vulnerable individuals to live with dignity and independence in the comfort of their own homes.

Home care aides are on the frontlines of our nation's health care system. They provide the elderly and infirm assistance with the basic daily activities that most people take for granted. Although getting out of bed, doing laundry, and preparing meals may seem like routine chores, for millions of Americans the ability to receive assistance with these activities is the difference between living in the comfort of their own homes and entering an institution.

With dedication to the individuals they assist, home care aides provide their vital services regardless of the circumstances. They assist individuals in remote rural areas and crowded inner cities, in clean environments and depressing, filthy surroundings. Whether their patients are pleasant and grateful or angry and abusive, home care aides have made the commitment to provide quality assistance.

Due to a combination of longer life expectancies and an anticipated population explosion of elderly Americans, the demand for home care aide services is sure to increase. According to the US Department of Health and Human Service's Administration on Aging, with the aging of the baby boom generation, one in four Americans, or 80 million people, will be aged 65 or older by the year 2050. The ranks of the "oldest old," those who are at least 85 years of age and usually the most dependent and medically frail, will reach an estimated 20 million.

November 10–16, 2002, is National Home Care Aide Week, a time to honor the contributions and commitment of the nation's home care aides and to recognize the challenges they face as they enable the elderly and disabled to remain in the comfort of their homes. This week also affords us the opportunity to send a strong message to lawmakers that home care aides provide a valuable service deserving of adequate compensation and respect.

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