Adult day care in Columbia and the Midlands

What is adult day care?

Adult day care is a DPH-licensed weekday program offering supervision, meals, activities and often health monitoring for adults who live at home but should not be alone all day.

DPH licenses 17 adult day care centers in the six counties, with room for 1,084 participants in total.

What does adult day care cost?

CareScout's 2025 South Carolina median for adult day health care five days a week is $18,720 a year, about $1,560 a month, the least expensive paid option in the survey.

Community Choices pays for adult day health care for eligible Medicaid members, and PACE participants attend the PACE center.

How do we choose an adult day center around Columbia?

Visit on an ordinary weekday and stay through a meal, then ask about hours, transportation, staffing, nursing on site, medication handling, dementia care and how the center communicates with families.

Check the center's DPH license and capacity on our adult day care roster, and ask whether it is a Community Choices provider.

Is adult day care good for someone with dementia?

Often: structure, social contact and routine help many people with mild to moderate dementia, and the program gives caregivers a reliable break; ask how the center handles wandering and agitation.

Starting with two or three days a week eases the adjustment. Staff usually suggest arriving at the same time each day and keeping the first visits short; a familiar routine does more to settle a newcomer than any single activity, and families should expect a few hard mornings before it sticks.

Where are the Midlands' adult day centers?

DPH's licenses cluster in Columbia and West Columbia, with additional centers in Winnsboro, Camden, Eastover and Chapin, so families in Fairfield and Kershaw counties have local options as well as those in Richland and Lexington.

Capacity varies widely, from small programs licensed for a dozen participants to West Columbia centers licensed for more than 150. Ask about transportation radius before falling in love with a center, because a long daily ride can wear out a frail participant, and ask whether the center can give medications and handle toileting.

Where is adult day care licensed across the Midlands?

This is how DPH's license data spreads adult day care across Richland, Lexington, Kershaw, Fairfield, Saluda and Calhoun counties.