Unmet needs for help and community-based services for the elderly aged 75 years and over

As indicated by the preliminary results, those with an unmet need in activities of daily living have increased visits to the emergency room; therefore, this is clearly an issue of great importance to the health of seniors. [...] Both policy decisions (such as closing hospital beds) and demographic changes have resulted in an increasing impact on community services and highlight the question of the preparedness of the health system to respond in a timely fashion to the growing needs for such services by the elderly. [...] Objectives of the Research Project 1. To estimate the prevalence of, and to describe, self-reported unmet needs for help in basic and instrumental activities of daily living (such as meal preparation, cleaning, transportation, bathing, and eating) as well as psychosocial and health-related unmet needs in the community-dwelling elderly (75+). [...] The key concept of this framework (see Figure 1) is not only the determination of the difficulty the person has in accomplishing basic and instrumental activities of daily living, but also the perceived need for help and the adequacy of help received for activities the person has difficulty performing or is unable to perform alone. [...] In addition, the framework includes an assessment of the prevalence of the negative consequences attributed to the absence of help or inadequate help.