Persons who are elderly and/or recognised dependents and live at home can benefit from local and home support services such as meals-on-wheels, on-call services for external assistance and home assistance and nursing services.

The purpose of these services is to facilitate certain everyday tasks and to allow elderly and/or dependent persons to continue living alone at home, in their normal living situation.

Who is concerned

All elderly and/or dependent persons residing in Luxembourg can receive local and home assistance services.

How to proceed

Home assistance and care networks

Assistance and care services are professional services which provide a set of home services for a client and, more specifically, all assistance and care covered by that person's long-term care insurance.

Home assistance services include:

• personal hygiene (help with bathing, brushing teeth, washing hair, etc.);
• mobility (help with dressing, undressing, getting out of bed, moving around, etc.);
• assistance with meals;
• domestic tasks;
• certain tasks such as shopping.

Home nursing refers to nursing procedures such as injections, blood sampling, infusions, wound treatment, bandaging and dressing, probe placement, drug delivery and blood glucose monitoring.

In Luxembourg, these services are offered by a network of home assistance and care services.

In addition, home services are also provided through small home assistance and care networks or by independent healthcare professionals who provide care for dependent people.

Anyone who requires home assistance and/or nursing care may contact any of the existing networks.

If a person is recognised as a dependent by the CNS (Caisse nationale de santé – National Health Fund), assistance and nursing costs are covered by long-term care insurance. Various services (including medical services) are also covered by health insurance. Assistance and care not covered by long-term care insurance or health insurance must be paid for by the client.

Meals-on-wheels

The communal administration offices organise or coordinate meals-on-wheels services. The purpose of this paid service is to provide a warm and balanced lunch (starter, main course and dessert) in the homes of elderly persons who cannot or do not want to cook for themselves.

For more information about the service, rates charged and minimum age for the service, please contact the communal administration directly.

'Télé-Alarme' – On-call outside assistance

'Télé-Alarme' is a paid emergency on-call and healthcare service for shut-ins. It operates 24 hours a day and may be contacted through a transmitter that can be activated very easily if there is a problem. Triggering the alarm transmits a signal to the central station, which takes the necessary measures: calling a doctor, a care and assistance network, a neighbour or a family member.

Those interested may directly contact the communal administration or the Télé-Alarme service 'Sécher Doheem' for more information on the service and the rates charged.

Who to contact