Cool to see a local business, Home Instead, featured in the NYT today. Also cool that it’s my profession, home care nursing.

Today’s article, ‘A Graying Population, a Graying Work Force’ profiles some of the workers and their clients. It’s demanding work, essential work and fulfilling.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — One recent morning Antonia Antonaccio, a home care aide, got a call to help an elderly couple whose regular aide could not make it. The regular aide, who is 68 years old, had thrown out her back.

Ms. Antonaccio said she empathized. Sometimes her legs hurt from going up and down stairs. “But it’s nothing I pay attention to,” she said. “I don’t have the time.”

Ms. Antonaccio is 73.

In an aging population, the elderly are increasingly being taken care of by the elderly. Professional caregivers — almost all of them women — are one of the fastest-growing segments of the American work force, and also one of the grayest.

Not all the home care workers are older. Some are young women just entering the work force. Some are caring for children or parents and need flexible hours. The wages are low, and not all home care workers have health insurance themselves.

I hope that health care reform will remedy this injustice. Right now the years before Medicare kicks in are years of risk for many workers. Health care security would free them to try less conventional jobs outside of the forty hour grind.