Elderly care, or simply eldercare (also known in parts of the English-speaking world as aged care), serves the needs of old adults. It encompasses assisted living, adult daycare, long-term care, nursing homes (often called residential care), hospice care, and home care.
Elderly care emphasizes the social and personal requirements of senior citizens who wish to age with dignity while needing assistance with daily activities and with healthcare. Much elderly care is unpaid.[1]
Elderly care includes a broad range of practices and institutions, as there is a wide variety of elderly care needs and cultural perspectives on the elderly throughout the world.
[...] it is individual effort that contributes the most to care: family, friends, and other volunteers cover 57 percent (36 percent by informal care and 21 percent by out-of-pocket payments) of long-term care responsibilities for the elderly (CBO 2004).