What's the difference between live-in care and overnight home care in Old Westbury?
This is one of the most common points of confusion, and it's worth getting clear on before you make any decisions. Live-in care means a caregiver stays in the home around the clock — but they're also entitled to 6 to 8 hours of designated sleep time per night. That means there are hours during the night when they are not actively monitoring your parent.
Overnight home care, by contrast, is a dedicated shift — typically 8 to 12 hours — during which the caregiver is awake and actively on duty for the entire duration. For Old Westbury families, this distinction has real consequences. In a large estate with multiple floors and significant distance between rooms, a sleeping caregiver is not a meaningful safety net at 2 a.m.
If your parent has Parkinson's, dementia, or a recent hip fracture, the nighttime hours are exactly when active supervision matters most. We provide awake overnight caregivers who are following an RN-reviewed care plan — not just present in the house. If your parent needs round-the-clock coverage, that's a separate conversation, but overnight home care is specifically designed to cover the hours when fall risk, wandering, and medical changes are most likely to go unaddressed.