Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to estimate the amounts of health and welfare services required for the frail elderly for use in goal setting in the Health and Welfare Plan for the Elderly. The data on 439 elderly individuals in need of care identified through a screening survey in D city in Tokyo and the data on 662 cases of elderly persons living alone in the same city were used in this research. The required service amounts were estimated using a method partially improved from that previously developed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology. First, in regard to five major kinds of social care services, elderly people were classified into twelve needs types according to degree of physical and mental impairments and degree of difficulties experienced by family caregivers, and then required service amounts were estimated by a method in which standard service models were established for each needs type. For the other three kinds of services, the required service amounts were estimated by setting individual requirements for service utilization, According to the estimated results, the majority of the number of beds required for long-term care facilities have been already secured, while in-home services will need drastic expansion.