What does a personal care aide do?

What is a Personal Care Aide?

A personal care aide is someone who works to help another person complete their daily activities. Personal care aides may work in hospitals, nursing homes, adult daycare centres, or private residences (as in-home caretakers).

Many people have encountered personal care aides in hospitals and nursing homes when visiting a loved one. A personal care aide is not a nurse or other medical professional, but a trained caretaker. While sometimes the duties of personal care aides and licensed practical nurses (LPN's) may overlap, it is important not to confuse the two, as they are two distinct careers that do have some different duties and requirements.

What does a Personal Care Aide do?

A personal care aide provides various services to a person who is unable to care for themselves on their own. These duties may include things like cooking food, picking up heavy objects, dressing, bathing, using the restroom, and performing simple housekeeping tasks. The main types of people that personal care aides serve are the physically disabled, the cognitively impaired, the chronically ill, and the elderly.

Some personal care aides work with just one specific client, while others work with several clients individually. Other aides may work with multiple clients at the same time. For example, a live-in residential aid may only have one client. Another residential aide may travel between the homes of clients throughout the day. Other aides may work in group setting like hospitals, nursing homes, and adult daycare centers.

An aide who works in an adult daycare center with the cognitively impaired may, for example, find that their main duty is assisting the individuals they care for in finding and using the restroom. An aide who works for an elderly person at their private residence may need to assist the person with carrying in the groceries, reaching a plate that is on a high shelf, or cutting up vegetables for dinner. Of course, the duties of a personal care aide may go beyond the simple measures listed here.

What is the workplace of a Personal Care Aide like?

Personal care aides work in a variety of different workplaces. These workplaces can vary from hospitals, nursing homes and adult daycare centres, to people's private residences. In major cities, most personal care aides are employed in large group care settings. In rural areas, home care aides are generally employed by individuals to care for them or their family members in their own, private residence. The employment of personal care aides is expected to increase by about 49% between 2012 and 2022, making personal care one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S.