Home care aides provide personal assistance and promote autonomy, on a daily basis to individuals who are unable to take care of themselves due to illness, ageing or disability. They assist them with personal hygiene, feeding, communication or medication according to the health care professional's instructions.

Tasks

Tasks include -
(a) Assisting clients with personal and therapeutic care needs such as personal hygiene, feeding, dressing, physical mobility and exercise, communication, taking oral medications and changing dressings, usually as per care plans established by a health professional
(b) Maintaining records of client care, changes in condition and responses to care and treatment, and reporting concerns or providing referrals to a health or social services professional;
(c) Positioning and lifting clients with physical mobility challenges, and helping transport them in wheelchairs and motor vehicles;
(d) Providing clients and families with emotional support and information and advice on topics such as nutrition, hygiene, exercise, caring for infants or adapting to disability or illness;
(e) Maintaining clients' environmental hygiene standards, such as changing bed linen, washing clothes and dishes, and cleaning living quarters;
(f) Providing psychological support to clients such as through conversation or reading aloud;
(g) Planning, purchasing, preparing, or serving meals to meet nutritional requirements and prescribed diets;
(h) Providing support to parents and care for newborns during the postpartum period
(i) Scheduling and accompanying clients for appointments with medical doctors and other health professionals or performing other errands.