What Can We Expect for the Future of Long-Term Care?
rates of illness and impairment reduced
growing interest in long-term care insurance, MSAs, and other means of personal responsibility
numbers of impaired are likely to double
social changes may make informal care more challenging
Notes:
Impairment estimates for the future vary widely. One of the lower estimates is that there will be 130,000 severely impaired adults in 2030. There are some reasons for optimism, though, as we think about the future of long-term caregiving and how to pay for it:
- Researchers have been observing some reduced rate of impairment and a later age for its onset (Manton, K. G., L.S. Corder, and E. Stallard. 1993. Estimates of change in chronic disability and institutional incidence and prevalence rates in the U.S. elderly population from the 1982, 1984, and 1989 National Long Term Care Survey. The Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences 48:S153–S166 and other similar articles).
- Possibly because of the increasing number of families caring for spouses, parents, or grandparents, there appears to be an growing awareness of the costs of long-term care and the need to prepare for it. For example, there was a marked increase in the number of long-term care insurance policies sold between 1990 and 1995, even though it is but a small fraction of what might be possible.
- NC is supporting the development lower-cost service options through Medicaid CAP, making Medicaid personal care services available to eligible residents of adult care homes, and development of independent housing with services.
- We don’t know what medical breakthroughs we might see in the next 30 years—prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease? Major reduction in osteoporosis? Better outcomes for those with strokes?