One of the most widespread sectors in this industry is the adult day care center, which follows the child day care model to provide social and medical attention to the elderly. In 2008 there were 3,400 adult day care centers serving 150,000 seniors. Another strong sector is geriatric care management, in which consultants meet with families to design a care strategy for loved ones tailored to particular needs and financial capabilities.

For seniors not yet at the stage of needing long-term care but in need of some daily attention, day-to-day care has been increasingly viewed as an intermediary step in a smooth transition to old age. Moreover, as baby boomers move into retirement years and begin to require non-medical care, a smaller percentage of those requiring such services will have family members capable of providing for them. Thus, the “professionalization” of non-medical senior care is likely to continue its strong upward trend.

Adult day care programs are offered in senior centers, community centers, and churches. These programs are sometimes attached to hospitals, nursing homes, or other health care institutions. In addition, residential care facilities might provide these services should the client’s care needs extend to mental and other chronic care concerns. For the most part, they are nonprofit organizations. The centers provide opportunities for social interaction and exercise along with hot meals. Adult day care operations can also offer a range of services–including transportation to and from home; counseling and social services; grooming, hygiene, and laundry services; social activities; physical, occupational, and speech therapy; and others–to those seniors with cognitive or functional impairments.

The increasing need for adult day care centers was widely recognized in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. According to Partners in Caregiving, 26 percent of existing day care centers opened in the late 1990s and the early years of the first decade of the 2000s. Still, the need is hardly met. According to the 2000 census, there were 3,407 adult day centers operating in the United States. The centers mostly served people with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, or those in poor health.