Experts say about 80 percent of us will need some form of long-term care in our lifetimes, most of it will occur at home instead of in a healthcare facility, the help is often not medical care but rather assistance with basic personal tasks, and more and more families are relying on in-home care for short-term and long-term care.

Enter “Keys to Caring at Home,” a presentation by Pierce County Aging and Disability Resources on caring at home, the services that are available, the difference between home care and home health, working with providers, paying for care, and how to avoid expensive services that can drain a family’s resources quickly. 

Free conversations on those topics will be held four times in May at locations in Tacoma and Gig Harbor. The schedule:

• May 13 at 12:10 p.m. at the Pierce County Annex, 2401 S. 35th St. in Tacoma.

• May 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Gig Harbor branch of Pierce County Library, 4424 Point Fosdick Road.

More information about the presentations is available at 253-798-4600. 

The most frequently utilized services for assistance in the home are “home care” and “home health.”  Although their names sound similar, knowing the difference in the services and the right questions to ask can save families hundreds and thousands of dollars over time, according to Aaron Van Valkenburg, manager of Aging and Disability Resources, a division of county government.

“There is no cookie-cutter solution when it comes to needing care at home,” said Van Valkenburg. “The needs of each care recipient and the situation of each family often dictate the mix of care that needs to be provided. Quite often, the most important part of planning for care is knowing the right questions to ask when the need arises.”

While many families pay for care out-of-pocket or through health insurance or long-term care insurance, publicly funded resources may help with the costs and enable care to be extended, officials said.