Impact of implementation of the long-term care insurance policy on the frail elderly and their caregiver.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A purpose of the study is to explore the impact of implementation of the long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy on usage of in-home services such as a home help (personal care) service, a day care service, a respite service, and visiting nurse service for the frail elderly in Japan. A database of aggregating results of four repeated cross-sectional surveys (two [1996, 1998] for before LTCI and other two [2002, 2004] for after LTCI) implemented in a suburban area of Tokyo.Major findings are as follows. Comparing the percentage of the frail elderly who uses those services before implementation of LTCI to those of after implementation of LTCI, the percentage with all three services have been dramatically increased. However, physical and mental health and caregiving burden of caregiver have not been changed before and after LTCI. It is suggested that using these services does not assure alleviating stressful situation of caregivers.