Veteran Home Care in Old Lyme, CT
Non-medical home care for Connecticut veterans — homemaker-companion services tailored to aging veterans living at home.
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Your brother called after the Fourth of July parade on Lyme Street. He noticed your father, who walked that route every year, had stayed home and didn’t tell anyone. Not because he couldn’t go, but because he didn’t want to ask for help getting there. That moment, quiet as it was, said everything.
Veterans who settled along the Connecticut River shoreline often spent decades taking care of others. Asking for help now doesn’t come naturally, and it shouldn’t have to feel like surrender. What they need is support that respects what they’ve already done and keeps them in their own home, on their own terms.
We’re Private Duty Aides, a nurse-founded agency serving Old Lyme and all of New London County. We work with families navigating VA benefits, post-hospitalization care, and the quiet daily work of keeping a veteran independent at home.
Veteran Home Care is non-medical, daily support built around the specific rhythms of a veteran’s life. That means help with bathing, dressing, and grooming, preparing meals, managing medications, getting to appointments, and having someone present who understands what service means to a person’s sense of identity. It’s not therapy and it’s not nursing, but it’s the steady presence that makes everything else manageable.
For families across Old Lyme, the call often comes after a discharge from Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London. A father finishes a procedure, comes home to a house that suddenly feels harder to navigate, and the family realizes they can’t cover all of it themselves. Our caregivers step in during those first critical days and stay as long as they’re needed. We also work alongside families who are trying to understand what VA benefits might offset private-pay costs, and we’re honest about what we know and what we don’t.
Day to day, veteran home care in Old Lyme looks different for every family. Some veterans need a few hours of help in the morning and nothing more. Others need full-day support or overnight coverage. We build the schedule around your parent, not around what’s easiest for us to staff.
Because we’re nurse-founded, our intake process for veteran home care is more thorough than most. Our founder has seen firsthand how veterans underreport pain and push through symptoms, so we train caregivers to notice what isn’t being said and to communicate that back to the family.
Nurse-founded, not investor-founded. Our agency was started by a working nurse who saw what families dealing with veteran independence and dignity actually needed. The intake process, the caregiver training, the way we match, all of it came from clinical experience, not a business model.
Veteran Home Care is a specialty, not a checkbox. We brief every caregiver on what veteran home care means before they walk through the door. That includes how veterans communicate, how they resist help, and how to earn trust without pushing too hard. It’s something we practice deliberately.
We pick up the phone. When your father’s situation changes at 7 in the evening, you shouldn’t have to leave a voicemail and wait. We stay reachable because care doesn’t stop at five o’clock, and neither do we.
We know Old Lyme and New London County. We know the discharge process at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, the geography of the shoreline towns, and how families here actually make decisions. We’re not a national brand trying to serve Connecticut from somewhere else.
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
A typical day depends on what your parent actually needs, and we build the schedule around that. Most veteran home care visits include help with morning routines like bathing, dressing, and preparing breakfast, along with medication reminders, light housekeeping, and transportation to appointments. Some families also ask us to be a consistent presence for a parent who is otherwise alone for long stretches. We're flexible, and the plan can change as needs shift.
In most cases we can have a caregiver in place within 24 to 48 hours of your call. For families dealing with a discharge from Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, we treat urgency seriously and have placed caregivers the same day when the situation called for it. The sooner you call us, even before discharge paperwork is finalized, the more time we have to make a good match rather than a fast one.
We're a private-pay agency, so we don't bill Medicare or private insurance directly. Some families use VA benefits, long-term care insurance, or other funding sources to offset the cost, and we'll help you understand what questions to ask. We're honest about what we know and will point you toward the right resources when something falls outside our expertise. The cost conversation is always straightforward with us.
Home health aides typically work under a medical order, perform clinical tasks, and are tied to a Medicare or insurance authorization period. Our veteran home care is non-medical, meaning our caregivers help with daily living, not treatment. That's actually what most veterans at home need the most, consistent personal support that keeps them safe and comfortable. If medical home health is also needed, our care can run alongside it without conflict.
Yes, and for veteran home care we take that matching step seriously. We ask about your parent's branch of service, their communication style, their tolerance for help, and what kinds of personalities they respond well to. Some veterans do better with a caregiver who is straightforward and efficient. Others warm up to someone who is patient and quiet. We've worked with enough veterans to know the difference matters, and we get it right more often when we take the time to listen first.
We don't leave you to figure it out on your own. If your regular caregiver is sick or unavailable, we contact you directly and arrange a qualified substitute before the scheduled visit. For veteran home care specifically, we try to use a backup caregiver who has already been briefed on your parent rather than sending someone unfamiliar. We know consistency matters for veterans who take time to trust, and we work to protect that.
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Veteran 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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