Formal Caregiver

A formal caregiver is a paid, trained professional who provides care — personal, medical, or social — to a disabled, ill, or ageing person, typically through a healthcare organisation, home-care agency, residential facility, or public community-care service. Formal caregivers include registered nurses, personal support workers, home health aides, occupational therapists, and professional companions. They are distinguished from informal caregivers — family members, friends, or neighbours who provide care unpaid. Accessibility research commonly considers both populations as distinct users of assistive technology, because their goals, training, scope of practice, and tolerance for technical complexity differ, and because many disabled people rely on a mixed 'caregiver network' of formal and informal supporters.