WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Feb. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- Older people who do not have help for daily tasks such as dressing and bathing are much more likely to be hospitalized for acute illness than older adults who receive the help they need, a Purdue University study indicates, suggesting that reducing health-care costs for older adults may be as simple as providing them with a little household help each day.
A research team, including Purdue nursing professor Laura P. Sands, has found evidence that older adults who qualify for nursing-home care because of their disabilities in daily tasks can continue to live in their homes provided they receive assistance with fundamental needs such as bathing, dressing and preparing food.
Elders who lived alone without such needed assistance were more likely to require hospitalization.
After a few weeks of help with daily tasks, however, the need for health care dropped off, implying that a little help with the basics goes a long way.
"While such essential care would not include the cost of visits to the doctor, our data suggest that people who receive additional assistance would be less likely to be hospitalized, and that could conceivably allow us to keep our health care-costs down while still providing for our frail elders," said Sands, who is an associate professor of nursing in Purdue's College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences.
"Nearly 30 percent of adults aged 75 and older have one or more disabilities in performing basic activities of daily living," Sands said.
Sands said that while the concept would not eliminate older people's need for regular medical attention, it could reduce preventable illness, which would improve the quality of life for the generation of baby boomer Americans, many of whom will need some form of care within the next decade.
"That's what many elderly people and their younger family members desire."
Sands also said that $132 billion is spent yearly in the U.S. on long- term medical care, about 73 percent of which goes to nursing homes.
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