| wrholt |
July 28, 2011 08:05 PM |
In the US, "respite care" refers specifically to providing temporary relief from caretaking duties for a person who functions as the primary caretaker for a disabled family member who cannot be left alone for any significant length of time.
For example, suppose my father had a disabling degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's dementia or ALS, and the disease had progressed to the point where someone needed to care for him on a full-time basis, and I was the family member who accepted the task of being his primary caretaker. If I need to leave him at home in order to see a doctor myself, I could arrange for "respite care": that is, for someone else to come into my home to care for my father, giving ME a respite from my duties so that I could attend to my own needs. Respite care could be for as little as an hour or two or for several days, and it could be as informal as having another relative come in to replace me for a while or as formal as hiring professional caregivers with appropriate skills to come in.
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