Dementia Care in Norwich, CT
Specialized in-home support for seniors with dementia, Alzheimer's, and memory loss.
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
You noticed it on a Tuesday. Your father couldn’t find the bathroom in the house he’s lived in for thirty years, just off Washington Street, and he got angry when you gently pointed the way. You drove home through Norwich telling yourself it was just a bad day. It probably wasn’t, and somewhere inside you already know that.
Memory loss changes things slowly and then all at once. The person you’re watching is still your parent, still themselves in flashes, but the routine that holds everything together is getting harder to keep. That’s exactly where we come in.
Private Duty Aides provides in-home dementia care throughout Norwich and the surrounding New London County area. We’re private-pay and nurse-founded, which means the people we send into your parent’s home understand what cognitive decline actually looks like day to day.
Dementia care at home is built around one idea: keeping your parent in a familiar environment, with a consistent routine, supported by someone who understands that confusion and fear are symptoms, not personality. That means an aide who shows up at the same time, greets your parent the same way, follows the same morning sequence, and knows when to redirect and when to simply sit with them.
Day to day, that work includes help with bathing, dressing, and grooming done calmly and at your parent’s pace. It includes meal preparation, medication reminders, light activity to stay engaged, and steady supervision to prevent wandering or accidents in the home. If your parent has recently been discharged from William W. Backus Hospital following a fall or a medical event tied to cognitive decline, we can step in quickly to cover the gap between hospital care and what family members can realistically provide on their own.
Families across Norwich, whether they’re nearby in Bean Hill or coming in from across the county, typically need the same thing: someone reliable who understands dementia and won’t treat their parent like a task to complete. We structure our care plans around the specific stage of memory loss, not a generic checklist.
Because Private Duty Aides was founded by a working nurse, our approach to dementia care is grounded in clinical reality. That means aides who are briefed on your parent’s specific patterns, not just their diagnosis, and supervisors who know the difference between a difficult morning and a meaningful change in condition.
Nurse-founded
Our agency was started by a working nurse who watched families try to navigate memory loss, safety at home, the painful process of watching a parent change, and the exhausting work of keeping routine intact. She built this service around what those families actually needed, not what was easiest to offer.
Specific to dementia
We don’t treat dementia care as a variation of general home care. Aides working with memory loss clients are briefed in detail, matched by personality and experience, and supported by a supervisor who understands this particular kind of work.
We stay reachable
When something changes, and with dementia something always eventually changes, you should be able to call and reach a person who knows your parent’s file. That’s how we operate. You’re not calling a national hotline.
Local to Norwich and New London County
We know the discharge process at William W. Backus Hospital, we know New London County, and we know the families here. That local familiarity means fewer delays and better communication when things need to move quickly.
How it works
You tell us what’s been happening. No intake forms, no long hold times, no sales process. We listen to your situation and ask the questions that actually matter for dementia care specifically.
For dementia care, matching matters more than it does for almost any other service. We look at your parent’s personality, their stage of memory loss, their daily routine, and their triggers, then we match accordingly, not just by who’s available.
Often the same day for Norwich families dealing with an urgent situation. If your parent just came home from Backus or the family is at a crisis point, we don’t make you wait a week for an assessment appointment.
You’re not handed off to a scheduler and forgotten. We check in, we’re reachable when something changes, and if the care plan needs to shift as the dementia progresses, we adjust it with you.
Why families choose us
Every aide is trained and supervised through an RN’s lens — not just placed and forgotten.
Personality fit matters more than skill on paper. We match for temperament, pace, and patience.
No franchise rotation. You work with the people who run this agency — direct, accessible, accountable.
Most families are matched with a caregiver within 24 to 48 hours. When something shifts at home, we move quickly.
We build a daily structure around your parent’s rhythm — meals, walks, evenings — and protect it.
You hear from us, not just the aide. Updates on appetite, sleep, mood, mobility — the things that matter.
Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they're ever placed in a home.
Why families trust us
Private Duty Aides is nurse-founded. Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — a background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they are ever placed in a home. You get the same consistent caregiver, matched by a nurse, not whoever happens to be available.
Common questions
A typical day includes help with the morning routine (waking, bathing, dressing, and breakfast) done in a calm, consistent way that reduces confusion. The aide provides companionship, engages your parent in simple activities suited to their current ability, prepares meals, gives medication reminders, and monitors for safety throughout their shift. For someone with dementia, the consistency of who is there and how they do things often matters as much as the tasks themselves. The goal is a day that feels familiar and settled, not hurried or clinical.
We can typically have care in place within 48 hours of your first call, and for urgent post-discharge situations we often arrange same-day coverage. Backus discharges can happen quickly and the window between leaving the hospital and getting home support in place is exactly when falls and confusion tend to spike. Call us as soon as you know a discharge is coming and we'll coordinate from there.
We are a private-pay agency, which means we don't bill Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance. Families pay us directly. That model gives us more flexibility in who we send, how we match, and how we structure care, rather than being constrained by what an insurer will approve. Some long-term care insurance policies will reimburse for private-pay home care, so it's worth checking your parent's policy if they have one.
A home health aide typically comes through a Medicare-certified agency, works on a physician's care plan, and focuses on skilled tasks during short visits. Our dementia care aides provide non-medical support for longer shifts, with a focus on routine, safety, and steady presence. The key difference is continuity: we prioritize the same aide, the same schedule, and genuine familiarity with your parent's patterns, which is exactly what someone with memory loss needs most.
Yes, and for dementia care we consider this the most important part of the process. Before we place anyone, we want to understand your parent's history, their temperament, what calms them, what agitates them, and what their day has looked like for the past few years. We also look at the caregiver's experience with different stages of memory loss. It's not a perfect science, but a thoughtful match makes a real difference in how the care actually goes.
We always have a backup plan and we communicate it to you in advance. If your regular caregiver is sick or unavailable, we don't leave you to figure it out. We contact you as early as possible, tell you who will be coming, and if possible, we try to use someone your parent has already met. For people with dementia, an unfamiliar face can cause real distress, so we take these transitions seriously and try to minimize them.
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Dementia Care near Norwich
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Norwich, CT
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