As the baby boomer generation faces retirement, there is heightened interest in the best ways to care for older adults and prolong their abilities to live independently. A new study looks at seniors' abilities to perform essential daily functions after entering the PACE program, a large scale managed-care initiative with 15,000 current U.S. participants.
"The objective of PACE is to enable individuals to live independently in the community and with a high quality of life," said Dana Mukamel, Ph.D., lead study author and a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy Research, University of California. "Maintaining or improving function is important in enabling frail elderly individuals to do so."
The average program participant is 80 years old. Study data showed that at three months, 61 percent of enrollees reported no decline in functional skills and by 12 months, 43.3 percent still reported no decline.
Although these statistics might not seem like progress to a casual observer, study authors considered the slower rate of decline an important factor in the ability to prolong independent living.
No comments:
Post a Comment