Hospice Support Care in Durham, CT
Non-medical hospice support — homemaker-companion services that complement hospice nursing during a parent's final months at home.
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
The night the hospice nurse from the Middletown team finished her visit and left your parents’ house on Pickett Lane, the quiet that followed felt different from ordinary quiet. You sat in the kitchen and realized your mother could not be alone through what was coming, and neither could your father. That moment, when the medical team steps out and the family is left holding everything, is exactly where we come in. We provide the steady, calm presence that stays when the nurses go home.
Hospice support care is not medical care. It’s the human layer that wraps around the medical care your hospice team is already providing. Our caregivers are there to sit with your parent, help them stay comfortable, assist with bathing and repositioning, remind them to take medications the hospice nurse has left, and simply be a calm presence in the room when family members need a few hours to eat, sleep, or breathe.
Day to day, that can look very different. Some families in Durham need someone there overnight because they can’t sleep knowing their parent is alone in another room. Others need a few hours each afternoon so a spouse can step outside. We help with light personal care, oral hygiene, gentle movement, reading aloud, or just sitting quietly. When someone from Middlesex Hospital’s palliative team has facilitated a discharge home, we can often start within a day or two of that transition, working directly alongside the hospice nurses already involved in the case.
Families across all areas of Durham tell us the hardest part isn’t the big decisions. It’s the waiting, the watching, and the worry that they’ll miss something. Our caregivers are trained to notice changes and communicate them clearly to family members and the hospice team, so nothing falls through the gaps.
Because Private Duty Aides was founded by a working nurse, our approach to hospice support reflects real clinical experience. Our founder understood from the inside how hospice nurses are stretched thin and what families are left managing on their own, and she built this service to fill exactly that space.
Nurse-founded. Our agency was started by a working nurse who watched families navigate end-of-life care at home without enough support. She built this service because she knew firsthand what was missing, and that foundation shapes every decision we make.
Built around this specific service. We don’t treat hospice support like a generic shift. We brief caregivers on the patient’s condition, the hospice team’s plan, and the family’s preferences before anyone walks through the door. Experience with comfort-focused care is a requirement, not a bonus.
We stay reachable. When something changes, and it will, you need to reach a real person quickly. You call us and we pick up. We don’t route you through an answering service and hope someone calls back.
Local to Durham and Middlesex County. We know the discharge process at Middlesex Hospital, the roads and neighborhoods in Durham, and the kind of plain-spoken families who live here. We don’t treat every case like it came off an assembly line.
How it works
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
On a typical day, our caregiver might help with personal hygiene, gentle repositioning, oral care, and light comfort measures like adjusting pillows or offering water. They'll sit with the person, talk quietly, read, or just be present. They keep an eye on how the person is doing and communicate any changes to family. The shape of each day depends on where things are in the process, and we adjust as that changes.
We can often start within 24 to 48 hours of a discharge from Middlesex Hospital, and in urgent situations we've started same-day. Call us as soon as you know a discharge is coming, even if the date isn't confirmed. Getting the conversation started early means we can have a caregiver identified and ready before your parent arrives home.
We're a private-pay agency, which means we don't bill Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance. Medicare's hospice benefit covers your hospice nurse, medications, and medical equipment, but it generally doesn't cover the kind of continuous home presence we provide. Families pay us directly, and we're upfront about rates from the first conversation so there are no surprises.
A home health aide typically works under a medical plan focused on recovery, therapy goals, or skill-building. Hospice support care is focused entirely on comfort, dignity, and presence during the end of life. Our caregivers work alongside your hospice team rather than replacing them. They're not there to treat or rehabilitate. They're there to make sure someone you care about is never alone and always comfortable.
Yes, and we take that seriously. We ask about your parent's personality, what makes them feel safe, whether they prefer quiet or conversation, and whether there are any sensitivities we should know about. We then match from that picture, not just from who's available. If the first match isn't quite right, we make a change without drama. Getting this right matters more to us than it being easy.
We maintain backup coverage so a shift is never simply left empty. If your regular caregiver is sick or has an emergency, we contact you directly, explain the situation, and send someone we trust to cover the shift. During hospice support especially, we know that a gap in coverage is not an option. We don't leave you to figure that out on your own.
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Hospice Care near Durham
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Durham, CT
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