Articles

Professionalising Home and Long-Term Care in the UAE: Competence, Career Pathways and Leadership
As the UAE expands home healthcare and long-term care, professionalisation will determine whether workforce growth translates into consistently high-quality support. This article examines how licensing, competence frameworks, continuing development, specialist aging expertise, supervision, career pathways and leadership can strengthen the sector, while creating clearer professional identities and ensuring that people supporting older adults can develop from competent practitioners into specialists, supervisors and future care-system leaders. Read more...
The International Care Workforce in the UAE: Recruitment, Retention, Competence and Continuity
International professionals are fundamental to the UAE’s health and long-term care workforce, but successful recruitment involves far more than filling vacancies. This article examines how credential verification, professional licensing, ethical recruitment, immigration and employment arrangements, induction, cultural competence, supervision and retention shape safe care for older people, and how the UAE can convert access to global talent into a more stable long-term care workforce as demand increases. Read more...
Building the UAE’s Long-Term Care Workforce for an Aging Population
The UAE’s long-term care ambitions will ultimately depend on whether enough skilled people are available to deliver them. This article examines how the country can build a sustainable workforce across home healthcare, rehabilitation, nursing, allied health, long-term care and community support, while strengthening geriatric competence, Emirati participation, international recruitment, supervision, continuity, career development and workforce intelligence as demand for later-life care grows. Read more...
Hospital Discharge and Transitional Care in the UAE: Closing the Gap Between Hospital and Home
Hospital discharge is one of the most important transition points in older people’s care. In the UAE, safe discharge increasingly depends on connecting hospital treatment with rehabilitation, medication reconciliation, home healthcare, family capacity and follow-up across different emirate-level systems. This article examines how stronger transitional care can protect recovery, reduce avoidable readmission and prevent temporary post-hospital vulnerability from becoming unnecessary long-term dependency. Read more...
Rehabilitation and Reablement in the UAE: Restoring Function and Preventing Long-Term Dependency
For older people in the UAE, recovery after illness, injury or hospitalization can determine whether temporary functional loss becomes long-term dependency. This article examines how rehabilitation, home healthcare, reablement, assistive technology and coordinated discharge can protect independence, and what the UAE needs to connect clinical recovery with everyday function, family capacity, measurable outcomes and sustainable long-term care. Read more...
Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in the UAE: Identifying Need Before Crisis Develops
Comprehensive geriatric assessment can help the UAE identify frailty, cognitive change, medication risk, functional decline and family pressure before they result in avoidable crisis. This article examines how assessment can connect primary care, specialist medicine, rehabilitation, home healthcare and long-term support around the older person, while creating clearer information for care planning, escalation, prevention and system-level learning. Read more...
Supporting Older People With Multiple Long-Term Conditions in the UAE
Older people rarely experience chronic diseases in isolation. In the UAE, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, frailty, cognitive change, medication burden and functional decline increasingly need to be managed as interconnected risks rather than separate diagnoses. This article examines how the UAE can strengthen multimorbidity care through primary care, geriatric assessment, home healthcare, medication governance, rehabilitation, family support, digital coordination and outcome-focused long-term care. Read more...
Dementia Care in the UAE: Building Diagnosis, Family Support and Long-Term Care Capacity
Dementia care in the UAE is developing within a sophisticated healthcare system, but diagnosis, family support, community services and long-term care do not yet form one consistent pathway. This article examines how the UAE can strengthen earlier recognition, culturally responsive family support, dementia-capable home and residential care, workforce competence, safeguarding, data and coordination while recognizing important differences between citizens, expatriate residents and individual emirates. Read more...
Residential and Nursing Care in the UAE: Defining the Future Role of Institutional Support
Residential and nursing care will remain an important part of the UAE’s emerging long-term-care system, but its future role should be defined carefully. This article examines how institutional support differs across emirates, when facility-based care is clinically and socially appropriate, how admission, funding, workforce, quality and transitions should be governed, and why stronger home and community services should complement rather than eliminate specialist residential provision. Read more...
Aging at Home in the UAE: Housing, Home Adaptation and Age-Friendly Communities
Aging at home depends on more than the availability of healthcare or family support. This article examines how housing design, home adaptation, accessibility, climate, transport, technology and age-friendly community planning can determine whether older people in the UAE remain independent, require increasing assistance or move unnecessarily toward more intensive long-term care. Read more...
Community-Based Support for Senior Emiratis: Moving Beyond Healthcare to Everyday Independence
Supporting older people well requires more than healthcare. For Senior Emiratis, everyday independence is shaped by mobility, housing, social participation, accessible services, family networks, digital inclusion, safety and opportunities to remain active in community life. This article examines how federal policy and emirate-level initiatives can connect these wider determinants into a stronger community-support system that prevents avoidable dependency while respecting choice, identity and family life. Read more...
Supporting Family Caregivers in the UAE: Respite, Navigation and the Hidden Care Economy
Family caregiving is central to later-life support in the UAE, but its scale, economic value and pressures can remain largely invisible within formal care systems. This article examines how national policy, home healthcare, caregiver benefits, family navigation, employment, domestic support, respite and professional services can work together to sustain families without treating unpaid care as an unlimited substitute for a developing long-term care system. Read more...