Home care is a little like assisted living except that you have a nurse practitioner or personal support worker coming to your home to assist you. The main difference between home care and assisted living, is that home care is not just for the elderly or infirm.
Home care has evolved over the years due to the ever changing demands on the health care system. In days gone by you may have been hospital after minor surgery and because you had an anesthetic and possibly a catheter, you would have been in hospital for two to three days if not longer. Today that is not the case and you are most likely to have day surgery and recover at home.
While it may seem that hospitals are kicking you out early, and they are, it is a good thing. Having home care means you are less exposed to the super bugs that reside in hospitals, you recover more quickly in your own comfortable home environment and it is vastly more economical to recuperate in your own home that in a hospital.
Home care is for everyone. Whether you have had a wisdom tooth extracted or are elderly who needs dressings changed for a foot ulcer. Sometimes home care covers longer term issues like care of the diabetic and the frail. Generally when one becomes to old and frail to perform normal tasks then home care becomes assisted care. The line dividing the two is a thin one and the choice is usually a mutual one made between you and your doctor.
