Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug 30;21(1):893.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-06891-6.

Eldercare services for people with and without a dementia diagnosis: an analysis of Swedish registry data

Atiqur Sm-Rahman  1 , Lars-Christer Hydén  2   3 , Susanne Kelfve  4   5
Affiliations

Eldercare services for people with and without a dementia diagnosis: an analysis of Swedish registry data

Atiqur Sm-Rahman et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: The growing number of people living with dementia (PlwD) implies an increase in the demand for eldercare services in Sweden like in many other countries. Few studies have analyzed the use of eldercare services for PlwD. The aim of the present study is to investigate the association between demographic factors (age, sex, cohabiting status) and the use of municipal eldercare services (including both home care and residential care) for older adults with dementia compared to older adults without dementia in Sweden.

Methods: This study used several nationwide Swedish registers targeting all individuals aged 65 and above living in Sweden in 2014 and still alive 31st of March 2015 (n = 2,004,409). The primary outcomes variables were different types of eldercare service, and all participants were clustered based on age, sex, cohabiting status, and dementia diagnosis. In addition to descriptive statistics, we performed multivariate logistic regression models for binary outcomes and linear regression models for continuous outcomes.

Results: Results showed that (1) older age is a significantly strong predictor for the use of eldercare services, although PlwD start using eldercare at an earlier age compared with people without dementia; (2) women tend to receive more eldercare services than men, especially in older age, although men with dementia who live alone are more likely than women living alone to receive eldercare; (3) having a dementia diagnosis is a strong predictor for receiving eldercare. However, it was also found that a substantial proportion of men and women with dementia did not receive any eldercare services.

Conclusions: We found that people with a dementia diagnosis use more as well as start to use eldercare services at an earlier age than people without dementia. However, further research is needed to investigate why a substantial part of people with a dementia diagnosis does not have any eldercare at all and what the policy implications of this might be.

Keywords: Dementia; Demographic factors; Eldercare; Home care; Registry data; Residential care; Sweden.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Predicted proportion of receiving any kind of eldercare in all 65 + population by sex, age, and dementia status
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Predicted proportion of home residential care service in all 65 + population by sex, age, and dementia status
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Predicted proportion of receiving residential care in all 65 + population by sex, age, and dementia status
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Religa D, Fereshtehnejad S-M, Cermakova P, Edlund A-K, Garcia-Ptacek S, Granqvist N, Hallbäck A, Kåwe K, Farahmand B, Kilander L. SveDem, the Swedish Dementia Registry–a tool for improving the quality of diagnostics, treatment and care of dementia patients in clinical practice. PloS one. 2015;10(2):e0116538–52. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Odzakovic E, Hydén L-C, Festin K, Kullberg A. People diagnosed with dementia in Sweden: What type of home care services and housing are they granted? A cross-sectional study. Scandinavian journal of public health. 2019;47(2):229–39. - PubMed
    1. Lagergren M, Fratiglioni L, Hallberg IR, Berglund J, Elmståhl S, Hagberg B, Holst G, Rennemark M, Sjolund B-M, Thorslund M. A longitudinal study integrating population, care and social services data. The Swedish National study on Aging and Care (SNAC) Aging clinical experimental research. 2004;16(2):158–68. - PubMed
    1. Qiu WQ, Dean M, Liu T, George L, Gann M, Cohen J, Bruce ML. Physical and mental health of homebound older adults: an overlooked population. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2010;58(12):2423–8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Burch KA, Dugan AG, Barnes-Farrell JL. Understanding what eldercare means for employees and organizations: A review and recommendations for future research. Work Aging Retirement. 2019;5(1):44–72.