Keeping people in their communities . . . . . . It is about being able to choose the way we wish to live. It is about being able to choose a life of independence and individuality. Life is about having the power to exert some measure of control over life.
Life is also about growing old and growing sick.
This is not one of life's choices, but it does not mean that the sick and the elderly no longer have the power to choose, nor the power to control their lives to the extent they once did. Many people, in sickness and in old age, choose to stay at home for as long as possible. They choose to maintain control over their lives as much as they can, in their own homes, as opposed to living in institutions. Home care, in its many functions, strives to make this choice possible. It strives to preserve auto-nomy for ill and elderly clients, rather than to take it away.