Home Care Can Replace Nursing Homes
for Many

From the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine

A smaller portion of Americans older than 65 are entering nursing homes than in previous decades, according to a recent survey by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). During the 1970s and '80s, the proportion of older people in nursing homes—the red columns on the chart above—held steady at about 1 in 22. But this number declined to 1 in 24 by 1995, as alternatives to nursing-home care became increasingly available and affordable. The numbers of older Americans opting for hospice or at-home care—the yellow columns above—increased dramatically in the early '90s.

But the huge rise in home care alongside a very modest decline in nursing home care doesn't necessarily mean that a greater proportion of seniors are needing care.  But that families who might have cared for incapacitated relatives themselves in the 1970s, says the NCHS, are be turning instead to professional services in the '90s.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics

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