Adult Day Care
For many families, adult day-care services provide the same kind of respite and ability to continue to work as day care for their children does. Whether it is full time, part time, or for occasional periods of respite, adult day care can be the answer to your needs. Three-quarters of the adults attending day care live with their spouse or adult children or other family members; others live alone.
Adult day-care centers provide supervision as well as group exercises, activities, and even field trips for attendees. Some centers are set up specifically for persons with special needs such as Alzheimer's or other dementia or cognitive issues, and the activities are specific to their needs. Advanced Alzheimer's patients may need to be in locked facilities to prevent them from wandering off. This care requires specific training for the employees and licensure for the centers.
Some centers provide very general services and can only serve clientele that don't require locked units. Many may be in diapers, but some centers require their adult clients to be continent (have bladder and bowel control) and able to be taken to the toilet at regular intervals to prevent accidents. Almost 60 percent of consumers require assistance with two or more ADLs (bathing, eating, dressing, grooming, toileting, transferring, or ambulating). Just over 40 percent require assistance with three or more ADLs.
The vast majority of adult day-care centers are affiliated with other health-care organizations such as skilled nursing facilities, home-care companies, medical centers, or organizations such as Alzheimer's, Stroke Recovery, or senior citizen centers.
Care is usually available for extended hours, 6:00
There are more than 3,500 adult day-care centers in existence in the U.S. today. Two-thirds of adult day-care consumers are women, and the average age is seventy-two. While the national average daily fee is $56, according to the National Adult Day Services Association (
