Caregiver
Someone who helps another person with daily tasks, care coordination, appointments, or household needs.
A short glossary
Caregiving comes with its own vocabulary. These definitions keep the common terms plain and point back to public sources.
Plain-language reference.This glossary is for orientation only. It is not medical, legal, insurance, benefits, or emergency advice.
People and roles
Care team
The people involved in care, including family helpers, clinicians, aides, pharmacists, and other support contacts.
Health care proxy
A person named to make health care decisions if someone cannot make those decisions themselves.
Hospice team
The group supporting hospice care. Depending on the program, that may include nurses, aides, social workers, chaplains, volunteers, and doctors.
Social worker
A care team member who may help with social, emotional, household, resource, and paperwork concerns connected to care.
Patient advocate
A person who helps communicate a patient's needs, preferences, and questions. This may be a professional role or a trusted helper.
Primary caregiver
The person who takes on most of the everyday caregiving responsibilities, often because they live closest or have the most availability.
Long-distance caregiver
A caregiver who lives an hour or more away and typically helps with emotional support, coordination, and planning rather than daily hands-on tasks.
Home health aide
A paid, trained worker who comes to the home to help with personal care or other support, depending on their training and state rules.
Medical and legal terms
Advance directive
A document that records future medical wishes for a time when someone cannot make or explain care decisions.
Living will
A type of advance directive that describes treatments someone does or does not want in serious medical situations.
Durable power of attorney for health care
A document that names someone to make health care decisions if the person cannot decide for themselves. State wording varies.
DNR
A medical order about CPR if breathing or the heart stops. It does not cover every kind of medical care.
POLST
A portable medical order for people with serious illness or advanced frailty. State rules and names vary.
Terminal illness
An illness that is expected to end in death. The timing and care choices are specific to the person's condition and care team.
Care terms
Hospice
Care focused on comfort and support near the end of life, rather than cure.
Palliative care
Care focused on comfort, symptoms, and quality of life during serious illness. It can happen alongside treatment.
Comfort care
Care near the end of life focused on comfort, support, and relief from pain or other symptoms.
Respite care
Short-term help or coverage so the regular caregiver can rest or handle other needs.
Caregiver stress
Emotional or physical strain from caregiving. It can show up as exhaustion, isolation, worry, irritability, or changes in sleep.
Care plan
A written summary of care needs, medicines, providers, emergency contacts, and other information helpers may need.
Caregiver notebook
A shared written or digital record of medical, financial, and daily-care details that helps everyone involved in care stay on the same page. A home care binder is one version of this.
Activities of daily living (ADLs)
Everyday self-care tasks such as bathing, dressing, eating, and moving around. Care needs are often described in terms of how much hands-on help someone needs with these.
Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs)
More complex daily tasks like managing money, cooking, or handling medications and appointments. These are often the first tasks someone needs help with as care needs increase.
Adult day care
A community program offering supervised daytime care, meals, and activities for an older adult, often used to give the regular caregiver a planned break.
Bereavement
The period of grief and mourning that follows a death.