Deciding when to put grandma in the nursing home: measuring inclinations to place persons with dementia.
For caregivers of persons with dementia, estimating when that person should be placed in long-term care is difficult. Health care providers also find it hard to give an exact time as to when the person should be placed. Using data from 197 caregivers working with the Dementia Care Services Project in North Dakota, we show that asking the caregiver about their inclination to place can be equated to asking them for a specific time to place (κ = .616). Using the probability density function of time to place we were able to translate it into inclination. This inclination is easier information for the caregiver to provide and places fewer burdens on the caregiver and patient. It also provides the health care provider with a measure of time to help advise caregivers and recommend interventions and provide service organizations with measures of cost savings to support the impact of outreach and intervention.
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Center for Rural Health, 501 N Columbia Rd, Box 9037, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA. marilyn.klug@med.und.edu
Marilyn G
MG
Klug
Boris
B
Volkov
Kyle
K
Muus
Gwen Wagstrom
GW
Halaas
D000368:Aged; D017028:Caregivers; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003704:Dementia / Q000191:economics / Q000451:nursing*; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care; D009658:North Dakota; D013997:Time Factors