Home Health Aides and Aging in Place

This past weekend the Washington Post Magazine published a feature about a home health aides and family caregivers, including 104-year-old woman who cared for her 91-year-old sister in her home. The feature includes a slideshow with audio and an accompanying interview with the Marla Lahat , executive director of a home healthcare agency. The story follows Marilyn Daniel, a home health aide, throughout her daily tasks.

The country will need hundreds of thousands more workers like Marilyn Daniel if it's going to keep today's elderly, followed by their far more numerous baby boomer children, out of institutions. Already, the occupational category called "personal and home-care aides" is the nation's second-fastest-growing, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. It projects a more than 50 percent increase in such jobs by 2016, second only to the demand for "network systems and data communications analysts."

It's not hard to see what's fueling the need. Americans survive far longer than they used to: A man who reaches age 65 can now expect to reach 82, and a woman 85, the National Center for Health Statistics reports. But most spend those extended lives contending with chronic illnesses and disabilities, including climbing rates of Alzheimer's, that can make it risky and difficult to maintain an independent household, or even to take an unassisted shower.