Do I Need Home Care or Aged Care?

Do I need home care?

There are many reasons why people use home care. Do either of these sound familiar? 

Home care is a great starting point  that evolves to suit your care needs as they change. 

Some services of home care include: 

Examples of home care in action 

At a minimum, home care can mean something as simple as a house clean every fortnight or even just getting a lift to the shops once a week to grab the weekly groceries. 

As you require more support, you might also get help with meals and a visit from the nurse once a fortnight to make sure you’re keeping healthy. If you’re finding it harder to use the shower or even get around the house, you might make the most of getting handrails installed or use other mobility devices to help out. 

Finally, a higher level of care at home could mean that you have staff visit to help you have a shower a few times a week and make sure you’re keeping up with your medication and food. 

Home care and retirement living 

Home care has also been a fantastic addition for many retirement living residents at St Vincent’s as it supports the downsized lifestyle they like with a bit of extra support when they need it. 

Do I need aged care? 

At St Vincent’s, we know home is where the heart is and so we would help you to stay in your home as long as possible. But eventually, for many, there comes a time where they need to make the transition into fulltime care to get the level of support they need to live happily and healthily. 

This can be because: 

People living in aged care need fulltime care for one or many of the above reasons but it’s not always straightforward when deciding on your own whether you need to access aged care or home care. 

The truth is, the definitive way to get an answer on what care is right for you is through an ACAT or ACAS assessment. 

The deciding factor 

Truly, the definitive way to get help on a decision for what kind of care you need is getting an ACAT assessment. Through a trained team, you can work out what kind of care is best for you or your loved one or even determine if they need any care at all. 

While an ‘assessment’ can sound scary, it’s very simple. In fact, we’ve written a guide on how to get the best out of your ACAT assessment.