Kaitlyn Kuryk is a recent PhD graduate in sociology at the U of M. Her doctoral research explored how “informal or live-in caregivers” in Manitoba experience home care services. Drawing on 13 interviews and home tours, her work examined how medicalization — the process of framing ordinary life through medical terms and practices — alters the meaning of home.

Home care is designed to allow people with health or cognitive challenges to remain in their houses longer with professional assistance. But Kuryk found that, for families, these services often come with trade-offs. Spaces once defined by intimacy and routine become regulated by task lists, medical technologies and rotating staff.

“Sometimes that comes with the bureaucratic understanding of efficiency,” she said. “Things need to be objective and they need to be done with checkboxes. It shouldn’t matter which worker comes as long as the work gets done […] In that, we lose the parts of home that make it feel homey.”

“Right now, there is a standardization in healthcare, and we are moving toward efficiency. We want our services fast,” said Kuryk.

Her own experience shaped the project. Kuryk grew up with a mother who received (and continues to receive) home care. She described how their house became both a family space and a workplace for healthcare providers.

“It kind of […] blurs that boundary a little bit between my space and then your space,” she explained. This overlap raised questions about power, identity and privacy as she became part of the care team.

“I noticed that I was part of the care team, which I had never thought of before. But I was interacting regularly with home care workers,” she noted. “They’re not there for me, but […] my schedule was based around their availability.”

This realization left her questioning how they perceived her role in the household and whether other caregivers shared the same experience.

In her research, caregivers reported feeling both included and sidelined. While families were often listed in official care plans, their authority was limited compared to paid staff. Kuryk said it “was distressing, losing that ability to feel like you have agency in your own home.” She added, “it is your home and you would think that you have the ultimate say, but with the introduction of home care services, sometimes that does not happen.”

The shift toward efficiency also changes the emotional environment. One participant of Kuryk’s study, a husband caring for his wife of 63 years, described home not as walls or rooms but as the bond of their relationship. He posted instructions in the bathroom to make sure workers followed his wife’s wishes, but it also served as a daily reminder that his home was no longer fully his own.

Kuryk noted how medical devices reshape living spaces. Some families resisted visible technologies, such as wheelchair lifts, because of the cost, stigma or the sense that their house no longer looked like a home. Others reconfigured bedrooms into full hospital rooms.

Noting the strain on families, she said long-term caregivers often felt that “the caregiving never ends.” Even after a loved one passed, several caregivers said the feeling of a medicalized home lingered.

These findings matter in a broader policy context. Canada’s aging population and limited long-term care spaces mean more emphasis on “aging in place.” Policymakers often promote it as cost-effective and family-centered, but Kuryk argued the human side is overlooked.

Kuryk noted “there’s kind of [an] expectation that people are going to provide care without a real understanding of what that looks like, particularly when the care is being provided in your home.” In that sense, “We don’t do a really good job of training workers into the idea that every home is unique and every person that you’re providing care to is unique.”

Caregiver consent is often overlooked in home care planning, she added. “We don’t ask the caregivers […] ‘Do you want to do this?’” she said. “It should be okay if the answer is ‘no.’”

Her work shows how efficiency goals, while necessary for stretched healthcare systems, can quietly erode the personal meaning of home. The question, she raised, is how to support families without turning private spaces into standardized workplaces.