Dementia Care in Arkansas: Help, Respite, and Who Pays

Dementia care in Arkansas falls largely to family, and you do not have to carry it alone or pay for all of it yourself. An estimated 60,400 Arkansans 65 and older were living with Alzheimer's in 2020, and 175,000 family caregivers support people living with dementia in the state.1

Dementia caregiving is its own kind of hard: the long arc, the behavioral changes, the safety worries, the grief that starts before any loss. This guide maps the Arkansas-specific help available in 2026, from the free 24/7 helpline to Medicaid respite to the programs that can pay you for the care you already provide.

In This Guide

• Arkansas Dementia Caregiving, by the Numbers
• Where to Start With Dementia Care in Arkansas
• Where Can You Get Help in Arkansas?
• Keeping a Loved One With Dementia Safe
• Who Pays for Dementia Care in Arkansas
• Respite for Dementia Caregivers
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Arkansas Dementia Caregiving, by the Numbers

An estimated 60,400 Arkansans age 65 and older were living with Alzheimer's in 2020, about 11 percent of the state's adults over 65. The Alzheimer's Association reports that 175,000 family caregivers provide support to people living with dementia in Arkansas, giving a total of roughly 268 million hours of unpaid care valued at approximately $5.0 billion.1

If the work feels overwhelming, that is not a personal failing. It is the reality of a long, demanding condition.

Where to Start With Dementia Care in Arkansas

When a diagnosis lands, or when caregiving starts to outpace what you can manage alone, two contacts open most doors in Arkansas:

1. The Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline: 1-800-272-3900. Available around the clock, 365 days a year, and free, it connects you with a live person who can provide information, local resources, crisis assistance, and emotional support, in your preferred language through bilingual staff or an interpreter service covering more than 200 languages. Conversations are confidential, with one limit worth knowing: Helpline Care Consultants are mandated reporters, required by law to report abuse or neglect to state authorities. Staff do not give medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired, dial 711 to connect through a relay service.2
2. Arkansas's Choices in Living Resource Center: 1-866-801-3435. The Department of Human Services describes it as an Aging and Disability Resource Center that provides information about long-term services and supports in Arkansas. Trained program specialists help you sort through the options and make informed decisions, and there is never a cost. It serves seniors, people with disabilities, families, and caregivers, and it answers Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 4:00 (a weekday line, not a 24-hour one), or by email at choices.in.living@dhs.arkansas.gov.2

The federal Eldercare Locator, a public service of the Administration for Community Living, also connects families to services for older adults at 1-800-677-1116.2

Where Can You Get Help in Arkansas?

The Department of Human Services Division of Aging, Adult, and Behavioral Health Services can be reached directly at 501-686-9164.2

For caregiver support itself, grantees of the federally funded National Family Caregiver Support Program provide five types of services: information about available services; help gaining access to them; individual counseling, support groups, and caregiver training; respite care; and limited supplemental services. Adult family members and other informal caregivers of a person of any age with Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder are among its eligible participants.3

Keeping a Loved One With Dementia Safe

Some of the hardest moments in dementia care are the ones where you have to take something away (the car keys, the front-door latitude, the checkbook) while your loved one can still feel the loss. There is no painless way to do it, only a kinder-and-sooner one. Dementia brings its own safety and planning questions: wandering, driving, sundowning, and the legal and financial planning that needs to happen while your loved one can still participate. The Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline (1-800-272-3900) can offer information, crisis assistance, and emotional support, and point you to local resources.2 Do the legal planning early. A financial power of attorney has to be created in advance, because without one a friend or family member might have to go to court for a guardianship once the person can no longer make decisions, a process that can be lengthy and expensive. If there is no advance directive when they can no longer decide, state law determines who makes their medical decisions.4

Who Pays for Dementia Care in Arkansas

No single payer covers everything dementia care demands. Most Arkansas families assemble a plan from several sources, and which ones apply depends on income, assets, and whether the person you care for is a veteran.

Arkansas Medicaid (ARChoices in Homecare)

For Arkansans who qualify, the ARChoices in Homecare waiver provides home- and community-based care for individuals aged 21 and over as an alternative to institutionalization. Its services include attendant care, home-delivered meals, personal emergency response systems, adult day services, adult day health services, adult family homes, respite care, and environmental accessibility adaptations or adaptive equipment, plus the full range of Medicaid benefits. To qualify, a person must require an intermediate level of care as determined by the Office of Long Term Care; those who require skilled care are not eligible. Applicants aged 21 to 64 must also have a physical disability as determined by SSA/SSI criteria, Railroad Retirement, or the DHS Medical Review Team.3 Arkansas also offers IndependentChoices, a self-direction option in which participants receive a cash allowance for their personal care assistance and hire and supervise their own personal assistant.5 Arkansas's IndependentChoices manual lets family members serve as the paid personal assistant, except those with legal responsibility for the participant: a spouse, court-appointed legal guardian, power of attorney, or income payee may not be the paid caregiver, and the assistant must be 18 or older and pass registry and criminal background checks.6 Long-term-care Medicaid also carries income and asset limits that a dementia diagnosis alone does not waive;7 for the current Arkansas thresholds and how a spouse's income and assets are treated, see Arkansas Medicaid income and asset limits and Arkansas Medicaid and nursing home care.

Getting Paid to Care for a Loved One With Dementia

For veterans' families, VA's caregiver program can pay an approved family caregiver a monthly stipend (see below).8 Arkansas Medicaid self-direction lets a participant hire and supervise their own personal assistant.5 An adult child or other relative without legal responsibility can be that paid assistant, but a spouse, court-appointed legal guardian, power of attorney, or income payee cannot.6 If your loved one can no longer make decisions about their care, IndependentChoices requires a Representative to manage self-direction for them, and the Representative may not be paid for that role or be the participant's employee, so the relative who serves as Representative cannot also be the paid assistant.5 ARChoices waiver services follow the same line: a relative may provide them, but Medicaid will never pay for a waiver service the participant's spouse, legal guardian of the person, or attorney-in-fact provides, and relatives must meet ARChoices provider and Medicaid enrollment requirements.9 The pathways, who can be hired, and the pay are covered in the Arkansas paid family caregiver guide.

VA Benefits (for Veterans)

If the person you care for is a veteran, two VA programs can help. The Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) pays an approved Primary Family Caregiver a monthly stipend, and a spouse can serve as that caregiver. PCAFC requires all four of these to be true for the veteran: a VA disability rating (individual or combined) of 70% or higher, discharge from the U.S. military or a date of medical discharge, a need for at least 6 months of continuous, in-person personal care services, and enrollment in VA health care. Those four are a first screen, not the whole test: you and the veteran apply together, and the federal regulation adds conditions VA assesses during the application, including that the same personal care is not already being regularly provided by another person or agency. Once approved, the stipend is paid only after the caregiver enrolls in direct deposit through the VA customer engagement portal. It also provides caregiver training, counseling, and at least 30 days of respite care a year. The stipend is not a flat national figure: it starts from the federal Office of Personnel Management General Schedule (GS) grade 4, step 1, annual pay rate for the veteran's local area, divided by 12, then multiplied by a factor set in 38 CFR 71.40(c)(4)(i). In the current program (§ 71.20(a)) that factor is 0.625, or 1.00 when VA determines the veteran is unable to self-sustain in the community. For a legacy participant or legacy applicant (§ 71.20(b) or (c), meaning a household already in PCAFC under the pre-October 2020 rules), the factor comes from the sum of the veteran's 2019 clinical ratings instead, with no self-sustain determination required: 1.00 at a sum of 21 or higher, 0.625 at 13 to 20, and 0.25 at 1 to 12. A veteran who qualifies under both is paid whichever amount is higher, and the legacy schedule lapses October 1, 2028. So do not treat 0.625 as your ceiling: the Arkansas paid family caregiver guide walks through which schedule applies and the legacy floor that protects pre-2020 households. Because the base is tied to the veteran's locality, the dollar amount also varies by where the veteran lives.8 Separately, Aid and Attendance (A&A) is an increased monthly pension: a veteran or survivor who already gets a VA pension may be eligible if they meet at least one of VA's listed requirements, such as needing another person's help with daily activities like bathing, feeding, and dressing, or being a nursing home patient because of the loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability.8,10 The VA pension itself is for wartime veterans: among its tests, the veteran must have served at least 1 day of active duty during wartime.10 Call the VA Caregiver Support Line at 1-855-260-3274 (Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern; it is not a crisis line).11

Medicare

Under Medicare Part B, if a routine or yearly "Wellness" visit turns up signs of cognitive impairment, Medicare covers a separate visit to fully assess cognitive function and build a written care plan, a service that can help diagnose dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. After the Part B deductible, you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount. Medicare also covers part-time or intermittent skilled home health care for a homebound patient, and hospice care when a hospice doctor and the person's regular doctor certify a terminal illness with a life expectancy of 6 months or less and the person accepts comfort care instead of care to cure the illness. But Medicare does not pay for long-term custodial care (ongoing, non-medical help with bathing, dressing, and using the bathroom) when that is the only care a person needs; families typically cover that out of pocket, through Medicaid if eligible, or with long-term-care insurance.12 Where it operates, the GUIDE Model, a voluntary, nationwide CMS program that began July 1, 2024, adds dementia care navigation, a 24/7 support line, caregiver training, and respite. Not everyone with Medicare can join: the patient must have dementia confirmed by a participating clinician, have both Parts A and B with Medicare as primary payer, not be in Medicare Advantage or another Medicare health plan (including PACE), not be in hospice, and not be a long-term nursing home resident. Since the performance year that began July 1, 2026, the patient must also live in a private residence or in a residential care community CMS has approved as a partner, and someone living in a memory care unit cannot join. For that performance year, CMS pays the participating provider, not the family, up to $2,625 a year in respite per eligible patient, and the cap resets each July 1. GUIDE respite is further limited to enrolled patients with moderate or severe dementia whose primary caregiver is a relative or an unpaid nonrelative, such as a friend, and who do not live in assisted living or another residential care community. The person must also have a Medicare provider enrolled in the model.12 Ask your neurologist or the Alzheimer's Association helpline whether a GUIDE provider operates near you.

Respite for Dementia Caregivers

Respite is what makes the long haul survivable. In Arkansas, respite comes from ARChoices for eligible Medicaid members, which covers adult day services as well as respite care, and from the National Family Caregiver Support Program, which counts respite care among its five services.3 For the full picture, see Respite Care in Arkansas.

A few days a week at a dementia-capable adult day program can give you reliable hours back, on a schedule you can plan around.

Learn More

Find personalized help caring for a loved one with dementia in Arkansas at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.