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

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 15330124
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Social welfare and social work studies
• Research Institution: Japan Women's University
• Principal Investigator: NAKATANI Yomei Japan Women's University, Faculty of integrated arts and social sciences, Associate professor, 人間社会学部, 助教授 (00198128)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): SUGIHARA Yoko Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Human Care Research Team, Research Scientist, 福祉振興財団・東京都老人総合研究所, 主任研究員 (80311405)
• Project Period (FY): 2003 – 2005
• Keywords: long term care insurance / frail elderly / health and social services / service utilization / caregiver / caregiving burden / policy evaluation

Research Abstract

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.