Careers Working With The Elderly

For most people, a desire to pursue a career working with the elderly is inspired by a personal, often familial, experience. With a growing elderly population, a career in aging offers plenty of job opportunities, in fields ranging from healthcare to personal finance. This guide explores various career paths in aging and highlights degrees that can take you there. Whether you’re a high school student considering college majors or a baby boomer changing careers, this guide can help you chart the right course.

A career in elder care can be both personally and financially rewarding. There are a wide variety of careers to choose from, depending on your interests and educational background. Here are six reasons to consider working with the elderly:

Working with older people requires certain skills and personality traits. Before jumping in, make sure you not only have the knowledge but also the disposition to effectively help elderly people. If you have the following six traits, a career working with elder individuals could be a good fit:

Before choosing a degree program, consider what type of career in aging you want to pursue. Here is a sampling of 16 careers at varying levels, along with salary details, degree requirements and what to consider before making the leap.

Every morning began with a treatment team of sorts, including any current hospice patients (or family members) who were in relative crisis and in need of counselor support. I would prioritize those individuals and I would also help out with some basic patient care, particularly during my visits.

The bulk of my job was with the families who had lost someone on our hospice. I provided individual and family counseling as a free-of-charge service.

I also did group counseling with caregivers of individuals who were in assisted living, as a means to avoid “caregiver burnout.” This included spouses, who sometimes themselves had a fair bit of physical limitation. And finally, as a community service outreach project, I provided free counseling to elderly individuals who were in transition from home to assisted living. We had recognized that grief and depression were major factors in the switch from living in your own home to a facility.

I chose hospice specifically because of my personal experience in hospice. My grandfather was on hospice, and the services were a true blessing, including those services provided to my family. No one comes out of school wanting to have a career in hospice (usually); generally, it takes a personal experience to make you want to do it. That was mine.

I chose to work with the elderly in general because of the stories. I love therapy as a whole because, essentially, you’re getting paid to listen to stories all day. Elder individuals tend to have the best stories. And really, as I’ve observed, the simple act of storytelling for a senior provides massive therapeutic benefit all on its own.

I have always wanted to become a therapist (and at one point, a psychiatrist). One of my early fascinations with psychology came with the study of human development. One of the first things you learn is that, not only does development not stop at adulthood, it doesn’t slow down, either. This is especially true for late adulthood.

You would think “death” would be the most challenging facet for something like hospice, but it wasn’t. The biggest challenge by far was the sadness that came with individuals realizing they would have to die without their family around. But even then, being allowed to be there for them when no one else would be, and seeing the comfort it brought — it does make up for some of it, but never all of it. That will always be a challenge.

I was a bereavement counselor for two years. I actually didn’t want to leave, but it seemed like a necessary move. I still miss the work. However, I really wanted to get back to hospital work (it was my first real psych job out of school, and I loved every minute of it), and hospice work required a lot of time in the car — up to an hour each way just to get to work, plus driving to various nursing homes and clients’ homes all day. I racked up 44,000 miles on my car in just the two years I was working there!