When someone you love needs more help at home, figuring out how much help is the hard part.
Maybe your mom is doing fine during the day but needs a hand getting ready in the morning. Maybe your dad just had surgery and shouldn’t be alone overnight. Or maybe your family has reached the point where someone needs to be there around the clock.
Home care isn’t one-size-fits-all. Depending on what your loved one needs, that support might mean a few scheduled hours a week, or it might mean care that’s available day and night.
Understanding the difference between hourly visits and 24-hour care can help you start the right conversation with your family, and with us.
Hourly home care fills in the specific gaps in your loved one’s day. A caregiver might come by in the morning to help with bathing, dressing, and breakfast. Someone else might need a few afternoon hours for meals, errands, or a ride to an appointment.
Depending on the care plan, that support can include personal care, meal prep, help getting around, light housekeeping, companionship, and transportation. New York State recognizes personal care and home health aide services as ways to help people stay safely in their own homes, and you can read more about how those programs work through NY Connects.
Hourly visits may be a good fit when your loved one:
And hourly care isn’t set in stone. Someone who starts with just a few hours a week may need more as time goes on, and that’s okay. The plan can grow with them.
Twenty-four-hour care means coverage through the day and night for someone who shouldn’t go long stretches without support.
This tends to make the most sense for people who need help at different points throughout the day, including overnight.
One thing worth knowing if you’re a Belvedere family: 24-hour care isn’t the same as having one caregiver live with your loved one full time. Belvedere doesn’t offer live-in care. Instead, we schedule client visits and caregiver shifts, including overnight coverage, so someone is always there when needed, without asking one caregiver to be on duty around the clock.
24-hour care may be worth considering when your loved one:
The goal isn’t just to have someone in the house. It’s making sure the right support shows up at the right time.
Hourly visits give you scheduled support at specific times of day. They tend to work well for someone who’s still fairly independent but needs a hand with certain tasks or parts of their routine.
24-hour care gives you more continuous coverage for someone who needs support around the clock.
Neither one is automatically the better choice. It really comes down to the person.
Sometimes the need for more support builds slowly. Other times, a hospital stay, a fall, surgery, or a sudden health change makes the decision feel urgent.
It might be time to rethink your loved one’s care schedule if you’re noticing things like:
Needing more care doesn’t automatically mean a move out of the house. In a lot of cases, adding more hours or more frequent visits gives your loved one the extra support they need while letting them stay right where they’re comfortable, at home.
Families often start by picking a number of hours. A better place to start is usually your loved one’s actual day. Ask yourself these four questions:
Those answers go a long way toward figuring out whether a few scheduled visits, longer shifts, or round-the-clock coverage is the right fit.
Our home care team works with individuals, families, and healthcare teams to figure out the right level of care, and hours can always be adjusted as your loved one’s needs change. You can see the full range of what we offer on our services page.
Knowing your loved one needs help is one thing. Figuring out what that help should actually look like is another.
You don’t need to have all the answers before you start the conversation.
Whether your loved one needs a few hours of support a week, help every day, or 24-hour care, Belvedere Home Care can help you explore the options based on their needs, routine, and goals.
Need help figuring out what level of home care is right for your family? Contact Belvedere Home Care to start the conversation, or call us at (518) 694-9400.
