Women have played a significant role in long term care: formerly as volunteer caregivers and presently as volunteer and paid caretakers, as professionals working in the field and increasingly as old, old residents in nursing homes. The goal in long term care is helping people to function to their maximal level; it is based on a philosophy of care not cure. Family-patient relationships influence quality in long term facilities where nursing is the matrix of professional services. Respite care is designed to provide relief to family caretakers for time limited periods and long term home health care is a non-institutional alternative where the nursing home therapeutic regimen is brought into the patients' own home. Whatever the model, the female influence is pervasive.