Via Certified Nursing Assistant Training, nursing assistants assist and care for mentally and physically sick, impaired, disabled, wounded or frail patients in nursing homes, hospitals, mental health settings and extended care facilities. Duties of a home health aide are also very much similar to a CNA, but they work at either residential care facilities or patient’s own home. Both home health aides and nursing aides are termed as direct care workers owing to their task in working with sick people who require long-standing care. Their area of specialty decides the exclusive care they provide.

A Certified Nursing Aide is also identified by various other names like- nursing assistants, CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant), orderlies, nurse aides, geriatric aides, home health aides, unlicensed assistive personnel or hospital attendants. The duty remains the same in every occupation as they provide applied care and execute their day-to-day tasks under the custody and supervision of a registered nurse or senior medical employee. However explicit functions may differ with each nursing aide due to working in a different setup and dealing with numerous facets of patient care. These aides usually assist and support patients to dress, feed and bathe.

Nursing Aides are also responsible to serve food, make up patients bed, cleanup the room and patient’s belonging, answer phone calls for help and convey messages. They also have to take and monitor patient’s vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, temperature, respiration etc. They may also require assisting the patients with getting up and moving from the bed, walking and ambulance, shepherding them to medical examination rooms and operation theatre and even offering them skin care. Few nursing aides support other medical personnel by moving and storing provisions, setting up apparatus and tools and helping with some other events. Any change in patient’s health must also be observed and reported by the aides immediately to the supervisory medical staff.

A nursing aide working with a nursing care facility holds far close bonding with the patients in comparison to other medical staff, as they are the primary caregivers. Mostly it happens because of a patient’s long-term stay there which can go up to months or even years, due to which the nursing aides develop a long-lasting relationship with them by giving incessant care and compassion.

A Home Health Aide helps disabled, old age and restorative patients staying at their own homes instead of a health care setting. They generally offer health care services like monitoring medicine intake. They may also check and administer patient’s vital signs like temperature, pulse rate, respiration and blood pressure just like nursing aides. Home health aides can also assist the patient with routine exercises as recommended by the physician, help them get in-out and move from the bed, groom, dress and feed. Seldom, they also insert catheter, change unhygienic dressings, offer skin care by giving massage or even help with artificial limbs and braces. Some well experienced home health aides may also assist with medical apparatus like ventilators etc, to help the patient breathe properly.

Maximum number of home health aides work with physically disabled or elderly people who long for more wide-ranging care than a friend a family member can offer. Some also help recently discharged patients who have relatively short term aide requirements.

Usually in home health agencies a physical therapist, registered nurse or social worker assigns particular duties and tasks to the home health aides and supervises them to keep a record on their performance. Any changes in patient’s health are supposed to be reported to the case manager or supervisor.

Mental health assistants, also identified as Psychiatric Aides look after mentally sick and emotionally disturbed people. These aides do their job under a team of psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and social nurses. Apart from helping the patients with routine activities like dressing, feeding, bathing and grooming psychiatric aides mingle with them to get them involve in recreational and learning activities. They can also play cards with them, accompany them while watching television, playing outdoor games or even going out for a walk or picnic. Psychiatric Aides observe any changes in patient’s mental state or behavior and report it to the professional personnel if it is really significant. They always accompany their patients through out the treatment and remedy.

Becoming a Certified Nursing Aide can be a worthwhile and satisfactory choice of career, which can be rewarding for long time in terms of demand, good fortune and nobility of this profession.