Respite Care

The Scope and Types of Respite Care

Respite care started almost 50 years ago in the United Kingdom, where it was provided mainly in institutional settings, when either frail older people or children with special needs were admitted to hospitals for “relief care” on an informal basis. In some countries such as the United Kingdom, short-term care has been a preferred term to respite care due to perceived negative connotations. However, respite care is now an internationally accepted term and will be used throughout this entry. Literature focusing on respite care began to appear in the early 1970s and has been steadily increasing, mostly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. A small proportion of work originates from Australia, continental Europe (outside the United Kingdom), and Asia.

Respite care has long been recognized as potentially the most important service for caregivers of frail older people with or without dementia; young people and adults with physical, learning, intellectual, and developmental disabilities; and more recently, people with severe mental illness and chronic disease. Respite care is also offered to caregivers of autistic children and people with brain injury, cancer, and stroke.

Types of respite care vary depending on its intended need (planned versus emergency or crisis), duration (overnight or short-term versus long-term), and location of services (in-home versus out-of-home or an institutional setting, such as hospital, day care, and residential care). Respite care can also be packaged to suit individual caregivers’ needs where caregivers can have a combination of multiple respite care services and/or respite care plus other support services, such as counseling training, support groups, and relaxation therapies.

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