In health care

Health care

Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

 and caregiving, a companion, sitter, or private duty may be a nursing assistant or similar professional who is hired to work with one patient (or occasionally two). Companions may be hired to work in a variety of settings, including nursing home

Nursing home

A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...

s, assisted living

Assisted living

Assisted living residences or assisted living facilities provide supervision or assistance with activities of daily living ; coordination of services by outside health care providers; and monitoring of resident activities to help to ensure their health, safety, and well-being.Assistance may...

 facilities, hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s, and private homes, and their duties range from advanced medical care to simple companionship and observation.

Hospitals

In hospitals, sitters are hired by the hospital for patients who cannot remain unsupervised for even a short period of time. These include patients who are at risk for injury to themselves or others due to disorientation or combativeness, those whose vital signs are severely unstable, or those who have been observed attempting suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 (known as a suicide watch

Suicide watch

Suicide watch is an intensive monitoring process used to ensure that an individual does not die by suicide. Usually the term is used in reference to inmates in a prison, hospital, psychiatric hospital, or military bases...

).

Companions performing suicide watches also work in mental institutions. In some facilities, this is referred to as intense suicide observation (ISO) or "intense suicide watch."

Nursing homes

In a nursing home or assisted living facility, a companion or sitter is often hired by the resident or his/her family to provide personal care to the patient at a level that cannot be provided by the facility's nursing staff, in which each member is responsible for a much larger number of patients. These private duty nurses and aides may provide more immediate and detailed service, whereas facility staff can only reach the patient in turn and provide less frequent, rudimentary care. Companions in nursing homes also provide social companionship.

Nursing homes, like hospitals, sometimes hire sitters to watch patients who are at risk for injury to themselves or suicide.

Private homes

An aide providing care to one or more persons in a private home is generally referred to as a home health aide.

Companions are sometimes hired to provide only chores within a household, such as basic-level cooking, cleaning, or in some cases, nothing more than supervision or social interaction without providing any hands-on care.