First of all: breathe
After a serious diagnosis, whether a stroke, a progressing illness or beginning dementia, many things feel urgent at once. Yet not everything must be decided immediately: the treatment rests with the doctors. Families can order three fields themselves: accompanying the medical side, assessing the need for care, organising support. One after the other.
Field 1: Accompanying the medical side
Collect findings, doctor's letters and the medication plan in one place; a simple folder is enough. Clarify who coordinates at GP level and which specialist practices are involved. Medical services prescribed for the home, such as medication support, injections or wound care, are provided by a care service as medical home care; billing runs through the health insurance fund (as of July 2026).
In hospital, actively ask about discharge management: its job is to prepare the transition home before discharge happens, not after.
Field 2: Assessing the need for care realistically
What changes in everyday life: getting up, washing, eating, moving around the flat? Who can absorb which part, and what cannot be absorbed? If permanent help is on the horizon, apply for a care grade early: benefits start no earlier than the month of application. Applying for a care grade: step by step describes the whole path.
Field 3: Organising support
Nobody has to carry the care alone. A home care service can take over individual tasks or support daily life comprehensively, from personal care to relieving relatives. What the care fund co-finances is explained on Costs and care insurance. And think of yourself too: time off for family caregivers is part of stable care, not its opposite.
Checklist: the first weeks
- Collect findings, doctor's letters and the medication plan in one place
- Clarify GP coordination and points of contact
- Raise discharge management at the hospital
- Apply for a care grade as soon as a permanent need for help emerges
- Talk about powers of attorney and an advance directive: calmly, but not indefinitely postponed
- Have a first conversation with a care service before the situation becomes pressing
- Distribute tasks within the family: who takes on what, and who explicitly does not?
You do not have to sort this out alone
Much of this path is administrative work that costs strength while your mind is elsewhere. This is exactly where support and guidance for relatives helps: orientation on which steps make sense in which order and which can wait. A conversation does not replace legal advice, but it sorts things out.