Hospice Support Care in Old Lyme, 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 hospice nurse comes three times a week, and the hours in between stretch in ways nobody warned you about. You’re sitting at the kitchen table in the old house off Lyme Street, listening for sounds down the hall, wondering if you should call someone or if it’s too early or too late. That stretch of quiet, watching, waiting is where families in Old Lyme tell us they feel most overwhelmed. We come in during those hours so the people who love your father or your mother don’t have to carry every minute alone.
Private Duty Aides provides non-medical hospice support care throughout Old Lyme, working alongside your hospice team to make sure someone is always present, calm, and ready.
Hospice support care means having a trained aide alongside your family during the end-of-life period, doing the things that keep a person comfortable and cared for at home. That includes personal care like bathing, repositioning, and dressing, as well as companionship, light housekeeping, meal preparation, and simply being a steady presence so your family member is never alone. Our aides don’t replace the hospice nurses, they work with them, following the care plan and keeping you informed.
Families across all areas of Old Lyme, from the shoreline neighborhoods near the mouth of the Connecticut River to the quieter roads further inland, often call us after a discharge from Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London. The transition home can be abrupt, and hospice visits alone don’t fill the day. Our aides step in to cover the hours between clinical visits so that the home environment stays calm and your family can focus on being present rather than managing logistics.
Day to day, that might look like a caregiver sitting with your parent while you sleep, helping with personal hygiene in the morning, preparing a small meal, reading aloud, or just being in the room so someone isn’t alone with their thoughts. For families who are also grieving, having another person take on those tasks can be the difference between surviving this time and being completely undone by it. We take the weight of the practical so you can hold the hand that matters.
Private Duty Aides was founded by a working nurse, and that background shapes everything about how we handle end-of-life support. Our founder understood that hospice support isn’t just task completion, it’s recognizing when something has changed, communicating clearly with the hospice team, and knowing what to do in the hours that feel uncertain.
Nurse-founded, not corporate
Our agency was started by a working nurse who saw firsthand what families navigating end-of-life at home actually needed. Not checklists, but genuine presence, clinical awareness, and caregivers who can tell when something has shifted before it becomes a crisis.
Matched for this specific situation
Hospice support requires a particular kind of person. We look for experience with end-of-life care, the ability to be calm under emotional weight, and the maturity to work alongside a grieving family with care. We brief every caregiver before they walk through the door.
We stay reachable
When something changes, and in hospice care something often does, you shouldn’t be leaving voicemails. You call us, we answer, and we help you figure out the next step. That’s a commitment we take seriously.
We know Old Lyme and New London County
We’re familiar with the discharge process at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, the roads through Old Lyme, and the kind of families who live here. That local knowledge matters when you need someone who can show up reliably and quickly.
How it works
You reach out, we listen. No intake forms before you’ve spoken to a person, no pressure to commit before you’re ready. Tell us what’s happening and we’ll tell you honestly what we can do.
For hospice support, matching isn’t just about availability. We think about temperament, experience with end-of-life care, and whether the person will feel right to your family in a quiet, intimate situation.
Often the same day for Old Lyme families in urgent situations. We know this period doesn’t wait, and we move quickly when you need us to.
We stay in contact with you as the situation evolves. If care needs change, if you need more hours, or if something feels off, you call us directly and someone answers.
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, a hospice support aide might help with personal hygiene in the morning, prepare a light meal, assist with repositioning or comfort measures, and sit with your family member through the quiet hours. They'll keep the environment calm and tidy, report anything notable to you or the hospice nurse, and provide the kind of steady presence that makes a home feel less frightening. The specific tasks shift depending on where your family member is in their illness, and we adjust with that.
In most cases, we can have care in place within 24 to 48 hours of your call. For families coming home from Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London with an urgent need, we do our best to move same-day. Call us as early in the discharge process as you can so we have time to match the right caregiver before your family member arrives home.
Our services are private pay, which means we don't bill Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance directly. Some families use long-term care insurance policies that reimburse for non-medical home care, and we can provide documentation to help with that. We'll be straightforward with you about costs from the very first call so there are no surprises.
A home health aide typically works under a medical agency and focuses on clinical tasks ordered by a physician. Our hospice support aides provide non-medical care: personal care, companionship, light household tasks, and presence. We work alongside your hospice team, not instead of them. Together, the two services cover both the clinical and the human side of what your family needs.
Yes, and for hospice support we take that matching especially seriously. We talk with you about your parent's personality, their history, what makes them feel at ease, and what kind of person they respond well to. We also think about the caregiver's experience with end-of-life situations and their temperament in emotionally weighted environments. If the match doesn't feel right after the first visit, we'll work with you to find someone better.
We keep backup coverage in mind from the start, especially for hospice situations where continuity matters. If your regular caregiver is sick or unavailable, we contact you as early as possible and arrange a substitute who has been briefed on your family member's needs. We don't leave you to figure it out on your own, and we don't send someone unfamiliar without making sure you're comfortable first.
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Hospice Care near Old Lyme
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Old Lyme, CT
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