"Nearly 30 percent of adults aged 75 and older have one or more disabilities in performing basic activities of daily living," Sands said. "Additionally, of the more than 2.3 million older adults with severe disability, 84 percent receive some form of public health insurance. We wanted to find out what might be done to help this group more effectively."
The team discovered that those who lived with unmet daily living needs before enrollment in the program were more likely to live alone and to have been admitted to a hospital or nursing home in the previous six months.
"People who have difficulty with bathing, dressing and walking across a room require our health-care system to a greater extent," Sands said. "Those who have trouble performing such activities have higher rates of hospitalizations, longer hospital stays, and more physician visits than those with no disabilities."
But after six weeks of receiving the program's services, the number of hospital admissions for those who had been living with unmet needs significantly declined, becoming similar to the admission rates of those who had their needs met before enrollment.
"What this suggests is that if a homemaker or personal assistant helps these frail elders for a few hours a day, they would be less likely to experience medical conditions such as hunger, dehydration, falls and skin problems that occur when disabled older adults do not receive needed help with daily tasks." Sands said. "As our government is under increasing pressure to develop fiscally feasible solutions for caring for disabled older people, we feel providing disabled elders with adequate home-based care should receive further attention."
Sands said that while the concept would not eliminate older
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Contact: Chad Boutin
cboutin@purdue.edu
765-494-2081
Purdue University
13-Feb-2006