Advertisement
Advertisement
|
Home :: More Career Profiles
Home Care Aide |
Career OverviewHome care aides provide personal care, supervision and emotional support to millions of people who have disabilities, chronic illnesses, or are infirm because of age. A considerable number of these patients are young adults and children. While home care aides provide such medical help as assisting patients with oral medications, much of the care they provide is of a very intimate nature. Home care aides help people into and out of their beds. They help them dress and undress themselves. They give the patients baths and help them with the toilet. They often have to help them eat and drink.
Home care aides sometimes work in assisted living facilities, but usually they work in the patients’ homes, where there may or may not be family members who assist as caregivers. The home care aide might have several different patients to visit during the course of the week, or might be a live-in aide for one patient. Home care aides might have to work nights and weekends because some patients require constant assistance or supervision.
In addition to giving personal assistance to the patient, the home care aid might do such domestic duties as cleaning the patient’s room (or home), getting groceries and doing laundry. The home care aide’s job can be physically demanding, particularly if it means lifting and moving the patient. It can also be emotionally challenging if the patient is disoriented or irritable.
Home care aides often have unappealing duties such as emptying bedpans and changing dirty bedding. They are susceptible to back injuries caused by lifting patients, and also to problems resulting from spending long hours on their feet. Most home care aides work alone, but receive instructions from patients’ doctors and nurses. Though the work is hard, most home care aides are in the profession because they are caring, compassionate people who take great satisfaction out of giving assistance to people in need.
|
Career RequirementsSometimes not even a high school diploma is necessary for a person to be hired as a home care aide. However, more employers are insisting that applicants have some training or previous experience. Courses are offered in high schools, vocational-technical centres, nursing care facilities and some community colleges.
The courses cover nutrition, body mechanics, anatomy and physiology, infection control, communication skills and resident rights. Students are also taught personal care skills, such as how to help patients bathe, eat and groom. Some experienced home care aides will give newly hired aides on-the-job training. Some institutions offer workshops and lectures for home care aides.
|
Advertisement
|
Job OutlookThere is always a demand for competent, reliable, compassionate people to work as home care aides. Due to an aging population and the tendency of hospitals to discharge patients as early as possible, the need for people in this field is going to increase.
|
Career TrackThis is a workforce entry-level job with little opportunity for advancement. Because it offers part-time hours on weekends and holidays and at night, it can be a good job for students and people in need of a source of supplementary income. Being a home care aide can give a person an opportunity to see if he or she wishes to work in the health services field. Should the person wish to move on to another health services position, more formal training will be required.
|
CompensationThe average home care aide wage is $8.06 to $11.39 an hour. Home care aides are paid only for the time spent in the patient’s home. They are not paid for travel time between patients’ homes.
|
|