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Comparison of health and functional ability between noninstitutionalized and least dependent institutionalized elderly in Finland
- Authors:
- NORO Anja, ARO Seppo
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 37(3), June 1997, pp.374-383.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Describes how Finland's active deinstitutinalisation policy aims to reduce the number of elderly people in long-term residential care and to keep noninstitutionalised elderly people living at home as long as possible. As a contribution to the issue of the appropriateness of long-term institutional care, this article compares the health and functional ability of elderly people living at home or residential care to assess the theoretical possibility of discharging the least dependent elderly from a residential homes. Findings from two separate data sets collection in 1992 were compared. Elderly people living at home were found to be in better health and with better functional ability than those in residential care. Results indicate that one third of those assessed as able to manage in-home care could possibly be discharged if adequate services and housing were available.
Is home care a realistic alternative to residential care among institutionalized elderly people in Finland?
- Authors:
- NORO A., ARO S.
- Journal article citation:
- Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 5(4), October 1996, pp.249-258.
- Publisher:
- Munksgaard/ Blackwell
The high rate of institutionalisation among elderly people in Finland is widely among policy-makers. Studies how realistic the wishes for deinstitutionalisation are among the least sick elderly people in residential care, and what patient characteristics predict whether residential care is appropriate. This issue was assessed by the residential home personnel. Personnel assessment of institutional care as appropriate was mainly explained by patients' needing help with medication, limitations in activities of daily living, absence of own home return to, no living children, incontinence, and poor vision. Discharging elderly people from long-term residential care back to society is limited by factors such as inadequate housing and shortage of domiciliary care and rehabilitative services, as well as by attitudes among the institutionalised elderly people themselves. It seems more realistic to prevent the inappropriate institutionalisation of elderly people that to discharge the small numbers of fairly independent individuals already in residential homes.