Home-based Elderly Care Research Articles

Smart Home Technologies for Enhancing Independence of Living and Reducing Care Dependence in Older Adults: A Systematic Review.

To systematically review the potential of smart home technology to enhance the independence of older adults and reduce their dependence on care. Additionally, it sought to examine the positive impacts of such technology on their golden years. A systematic review based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The search was conducted on 8 April 2024. Peer-reviewed studies in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, CNKI, WANFANG DATA and VIP from 1 January 2000 to 8 April 2024 were searched. The methodological quality assessment used the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Positive findings relevant to this study were extracted from the literature and analysed using thematic synthesis. After meticulously examining 3404 studies, we identified 21 relevant sources for in-depth analysis, including qualitative studies (n = 10), experimental studies (n = 9) and mixed method studies (n = 2). These sources were grouped into five core themes based on the pivotal role of smart home technologies in enabling ageing in place: daily monitoring, assisted living activities, life reminders, functional improvement and emotional companionship. The study found that smart home technology offers numerous benefits to the lives of older adults, including increased independence, psychological support, improved cognitive functioning, enhanced self-management, increased mobility, support for caregivers, promoted social engagement and enhanced quality of life. Smart home technology can enhance the independence of older adults' lives, reduce their dependence on care, alleviate the burden on caregivers and promote home-based elderly care. This systematic review contributes to understanding the capability of smart home technology to promote elderly care at home and help better utilise smart home technology to benefit older adults. Older adults and their caregivers should be encouraged to adopt this technology to improve older adults' quality of life. No patient or public contribution.

Smart Homes Facilitate Age-Friendly Home Design

With the development of advanced science and technology era and the intensification of population aging, people's demand for elderly living space is increasing. In order to improve the living space environment of the elderly, this paper aims to solve a series of obstacles in the living space for the elderly, improve the convenience and security of the living space for the elderly, and create a livable environment by taking the home-based elderly care group as the research object, combining the physiological activity characteristics and psychological needs of the group, integrating the concept of barrier-free and smart home technology. Actively respond to the problem of aging, and provide solid support for the construction of a livable environment for the elderly.

Study on the Characteristics of Community Elderly Care Service Facilities Usage and Optimization Design Based on Life Cycle Theory

Abstract: As the aging population in China increases, home-based elderly care is set to become the main mode of elderly care in the future. The construction of community elderly care service facilities is receiving more and more attention from society. Currently, residential area design standards in China lack clear guidance on the spatial planning of facilities, which will lead to unreasonable facility layout planning and insufficient convenience in the utilization of facilities by the elderly. Fully considering the distribution characteristics of community elderly care service facilities and the needs of the community life circle when planning residential areas can effectively solve this problem. This study takes Xi’an City as the research object, based on the theory of life circle, through questionnaire surveys and cluster analysis, analyzes the current situation of the construction of elderly care service facilities and the characteristics of the use by the elderly. Combined with the community life circle model, the study scope is divided into community life circle levels, and put forward the planning strategies of coverage rate, number, richness, and spatial layout of the facilities, respectively. These strategies are designed to enhance the quality of life for seniors, ensuring that they have access to essential support and resources within their communities. It demonstrated that middle-aged elderly prefer community canteens and activity centers, while those with limited mobility and multiple chronic diseases have a higher demand for health service centers and community canteens. The utilization weight analysis shows that vegetable markets and supermarkets are most frequently used, whereas health service centers are the least utilized. The research proposes strategic planning enhancements, including full coverage of basic facilities, targeted increases in high-demand facilities, and tailored facilities for elderly characteristics. It recommends cross-community layouts to ensure service radius coverage, development reservations for future needs, and quality improvements to address the low satisfaction rates of existing facilities. The study concludes that a targeted approach to facility planning, considering the elderly’s diverse needs, can enhance the community elderly care service system’s sustainability and effectiveness.

How Socially Sustainable Is the Institutional Care Environment in China: A Content Analysis of Media Reporting

The multiple changes in population, economy, and social structure have significantly impacted China’s traditional home-based elderly care and social welfare. The importance of institutional care is becoming increasingly prominent. One of the critical considerations for the development of institutional care is its social sustainability, which pursues the realization of human well-being and aims to bring about good quality of life. However, this issue has not received due attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the social sustainability of the institutional care environment. Based on stakeholder theory and content analysis, this research identified and discussed the problems of the institutional care environment mentioned in the news coverage on eight major Chinese portal websites. The results indicate that seven of the eight problems that employees, the elderly, and their relatives encounter in providing and receiving elderly care services in the institutional environment are related to social sustainability. Employees’ health and safety is a concern; they lack education and training opportunities and have been unequally treated in the employment process. The elderly’s psychological, physical, and safety needs should also be further satisfied. Unequal access to institutional care and the inaccessibility of elderly care institutions is another problem that needs to be solved urgently. These findings will help government departments and investors become aware of the issues and implement countermeasures to create a successful, socially sustainable institutional care environment. They can also provide valuable insights for the elderly and their relatives in choosing appropriate elderly care institutions.

Home‐based elderly care development in Hebei Province, China: A systematic literature review

AbstractHebei, one of China's most populous provinces, is facing increasing pressure on its elderly care services due to a rapidly aging population. Home‐Based Elderly Care (HBEC) has emerged as a potential solution to alleviate this pressure. However, this care model is significantly impacted by various external environmental changes. The study employed a literature analysis method, conducting a PEST analysis, to examine the environmental factors influencing the progress of HBEC in Hebei Province, China. The findings offer novel research perspectives to inform strategic development in the HBEC industry. The study identified 19 environmental factors, both favorable and adverse, shaping the development of HBEC in Hebei Province. Based on these findings, the study recommends integrating laws, regulations, and systems, clarifying government roles, optimizing funding structure, expanding service delivery channels, enhancing public awareness of elderly care, and broadening professional talent development pathways. These insights can be valuable for policymakers, educators, and researchers seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities in the field, ultimately improving the well‐being of China's elderly population.

Analysis of the Construction of Rural Home-Based Elderly Care Service System

As my country's aging problem worsens, more and more attention is being paid to the construction of elderly care services in rural areas. This article aims to investigate the current status, problems, and challenges of rural home care services through the analysis of research literature. In the research, it was determined that the number of elderly people living alone in empty nests in rural areas increases every year, and problems such as inadequate elderly care services, low use of community elderly care facilities, and inadequate medical services are becoming more common. its importance is increasing. The current rural home care system has many drawbacks and disadvantages. It is recommended to fulfill the federal government's responsibility for community elderly care services, establish urban elderly care services, improve community elderly care services, and home care of the elderly, and participate in city and community care services for the elderly. Integration of medical and nursing care in rural areas.

Barriers Experienced by Community-Dwelling Older Adults Navigating Formal Care: Evidence From an Australian Population-Based National Survey.

This study aims to identify the relationship between psychosocial factors and unmet needs among community-dwelling older adults who have received or who expect to receive formal home-based aged care services. A subsample of the national Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers was used to examine the prevalence of having any unmet needs among older adults navigating care. We also examined associations between older adults' psychosocial factors and their unmet needs using logistic regression. Regression analyses highlighted that perceived social isolation (OR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.30-2.01), high/very high psychological distress (OR = 2.11, 95% CI: 1.52-2.93), and occasional assistance from informal support (OR = 1.92, 95% CI: 1.22-3.05) were associated with increased odds of having unmet needs, after adjusting for other covariates. Our study suggests that older adults facing psychosocial difficulties or lacking informal support are more likely to encounter barriers in accessing formal care. Future policy should address the psychosocial needs and support networks of older adults.

Study on the Participation of Social Enterprises in Community Home-based Elderly Care Services

With the further aggravation of the aging problem in China, different types of senior care services are showing a trend of integration and development, and the model of community-based home care services is being widely adopted in China, and social enterprises can become one of the important main bodies involved in the provision of community-based home care services due to their advantages in specialization and personalization. However, the current development of social enterprises in China still has certain problems in obtaining legal status, enhancing credibility and improving operational efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary to solve the development dilemma of social enterprises in the intervention of community-based elderly care services by increasing government support, improving the level of business operation and strengthening publicity and promotion, so as to enhance the blood-forming ability of the enterprises themselves and further optimize the market of elderly care services in China.

The Current Situation and Demand Drivers of Rural Home Elderly Care Services in the Context of Rural Revitalisation --- Taking Chengdu City as an Example

Based on a sample of 487 rural elderly people from five counties (cities and districts) in Chengdu City, this paper investigates the main demand drivers affecting rural home-based elderly care service consumption willingness based on structural equation modelling. The results of the study show that (1) the overall satisfaction level of the demand for rural home-based elderly care services in Chengdu is 40%, with insufficient service relevance and low cost-effectiveness; at the same time, the service functions of the basic facilities for the elderly are not sufficiently fulfilled, and the resources are not effectively utilised. (2) The willingness to participate in home care services in rural Chengdu is mainly driven by spiritual and cultural, medical and health care and other demand factors. (3) Life care has a positive effect on rural elderly's participation in home care to a certain extent, but it is not significant. Safety and security indirectly affect rural elderly's willingness to age in place by influencing medical and health care. Therefore, the government, enterprises, communities, and families should work together in an orderly and coordinated manner to form a family-centred, community-based, and professional service-dependent socialised service for the rural elderly living at home, with the main content of solving daily life difficulties, and supplemented by spiritual and cultural services, in order to guard the rural elderly in their later years of happiness.

Analysis on the Policy of Beijing’s Home-based Elderly Care Service

China entered an aging society in 1999, and so far, Beijing has entered the moderately aging society. Under the circumstances, home care has become the primary choice for the elderly in Beijing. Based on the relevant literature, this paper studies the existing policies and practical difficulties of home-based elderly care service in Beijing. The paper recognizes good effects of the current policies and further analyzes the problems to be improved from the aspects of policy follow-up of market segmentation, policy coordination, and policy dynamic adjustment. Based on the research, the paper suggests that the government should coordinate the development of industries and institutions by doing a good job in the market segmentation. The government need to improve the matched policies to reflect the comprehensive effect of the policy system. All sectors of society need to advocate a new view of supporting the elderly to create a good policy environment.

Re-purposing the built environment of urban China: Residential eldercare and David Harvey's capital switching in a new era

In urban China, institutional eldercare interacts with local land markets in ways that present special analytical problems in critical political economy. It is a new sector: home-based eldercare and childcare have formed complementary parts of intergenerational household strategies that are coming under system-wide pressure for the first time. Growth in Chinese institutional eldercare has increasingly contributed to the repurposing of a wide range of disused buildings, with noteworthy state encouragement. We read this post-reform feature of urban transformation to deploy David Harvey’s concept of ‘capital switching’ in new ways that are emerging in studies of China's urban geography. Harvey’s framework has already been used in analysing China’s multi-decade boom in the built environment. It exposed the stabilising effects of diverting capital from overaccumulation in single turnover and realisation cycles into deferred returns in the multi-cycle built environment albeit complicated by complex and distinctive interpenetrations of consumption fund and fixed capital, for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, state and non-state interests, and so on. This certainly speaks to the origins of contemporary Chinese urbanisation booms. But repurposing for institutional eldercare now appears to be playing a role in abating mounting overaccumulation and potential devalorisation in the built environment, pairing these unprofitable buildings with for-profit eldercare services operating and yielding profits in repeated single turnover cycles. We experiment with bundled commodity theory to understand repurposing buildings for residential eldercare in this new context.

Perspective on Rural Home-Based Elderly Care—Dilemma Analysis and Optimization Path Exploration

Perspective on Rural Home-Based Elderly Care—Dilemma Analysis and Optimization Path Exploration

Research on Path Optimization of Social Organizations Participating in Community Home-Based Elderly Care Services

Research on Path Optimization of Social Organizations Participating in Community Home-Based Elderly Care Services

Research on the Problems and Pathways of Community Home-Based Elderly Care Services in Jinghu District, Wuhu City

Research on the Problems and Pathways of Community Home-Based Elderly Care Services in Jinghu District, Wuhu City

The impact of using community home-based elderly care services on older adults' self-reported health: fresh evidence from China.

The rapid population aging in China, characterized by a higher prevalence of illnesses, earlier onset of diseases, and longer durations of living with ailments, substantially engenders challenges within the domain of older adults' healthcare. Community home-based elderly care services (CHECS) are a feasible solution to solve the problem of older adults' care and protect older adults' health. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship, heterogeneity effects and influential mechanisms between older adults' use of CHECS and their self- reported health. The study employs the Instrumental Variable technique and empirically investigates the relationship, heterogeneity effects and influential mechanisms between older adults using CHECS and their self-reported health using data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey from 2018. The findings indicate, firstly, that using CHECS considerably improves older adults' self-reported health. Secondly, the heterogeneity test reveals that the effect is more pronounced for older adults who are under the age of 80, have functional disabilities, are free of chronic diseases, have never attended school, reside in lower-income households, are single, rarely interact with their children, and live in central urban or city/county regions. Thirdly, the mechanism test reveals that the "social network effect" and "family care effect" are the key influence channels of using CHECS. An empirical foundation for the policy reform of community home-based care for seniors is provided by this study with the limitations to discuss the other socioeconomic aspects such as government health expenditure and discuss the specific services aspects such as health care. The findings carry substantial implications for improving the health of older individuals and provide suggestions for establishing a socialized aged care system in China.

The Imbalance in Home-based Elderly Care in China: Niche Market Opportunity and Lessons from Japan

In recent years, there has been a profound shift in the demographic structure in China, with an increasingly severe trend towards aging. This study employs a comparative analysis based on recent data from China and other 26 countries to highlight the unique features of Chinas aging society. Despite having a similar trend of declining birth rates as developed countries, Chinas elderly dependency ratio is higher than that of developing countries. This phenomenon will inevitably impact the Chinese value of filial piety, while also presenting an opportunity for the development of the elderly market, particularly in home-based care. However, due to the nascent stage of Chinas elderly care market, significant gaps still exist. To address this, the paper adopts Japan as a case study and highlights favorable measures that Japan has implemented which may be considered opportunistic for future home-based care market in China. Finally, feasible suggestions are provided to address the imbalance between supply and demand in the home-based care market.

Social sustainability of aged care public-private partnership projects in China: Critical practices and realisation paths

The profound changes in China's population, economy and social structure have significantly impacted traditional home-based aged care and social welfare, leading to the emergence of Aged Care Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects for institutional care. Social sustainability is crucial for these projects as it greatly improves stakeholders' quality of life and well-being. Adoption of social sustainability practices enhances elderly and employee satisfaction, offers competitive advantages, and fosters community development. This study aimed to establish a socially sustainable development process for aged care PPP projects. A multiple case study was conducted, and an improved critical incident technique was adopted. Forty-two first-level critical practices that should be adopted by government departments, private investors and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) at different stages in the lifecycle were identified from three main cases and seventeen parallel reference cases. Twenty-one realisation paths and a consolidated realisation path were established based on analysing the enabling relationships between critical practices. The preparation phase is pivotal, with ten of the 21 more important critical practices (i.e., critical practices that appear in all realisation paths) adopted at this phase. The behaviours and decisions of government departments played a key and decisive role, with eighteen more important critical practices adopted by them alone. This study contributes to enhancing knowledge of social sustainability in aged care. The critical practices and the realisation paths provide a complete picture of realising social sustainability of aged care PPP projects. The public and private sectors can adopt corresponding behaviours and decisions at different project stages to deliver projects successfully. The empirical data shows the applicability of stakeholder theory in social sustainability research on aged care. In addition, the results provide insights into the achievement of social sustainability of aged care projects in other countries and the understanding of social sustainability of other public service projects. However, potential biases exist in the study, arising from considering aged care PPP projects as a whole, neglecting lessons from failure cases, and subjective judgments in qualitative research.

Research on Service Design of Home-based Elderly Care for the Mildly Disabled Elderly in Chengdu Chongqing Area

In order to cope with the aging and empty nest trend, improve the quality of life of the disabled elderly, and enhance the experience and satisfaction of home care products and services. This article investigates the daily status and needs of mildly disabled elderly people in the Chengdu & Chongqing region with methods such as questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, natural observation, literature review, big data mining and analysis, design testing and evaluation ,and then analyze the characteristics of existing products in the market, and apply research on natural interaction technology and emotional design theory. Through theoretical application research, research, and experimental testing, the aging design strategy, methods, and principles of intelligent products were obtained. Through practice, a set of home-based elderly care service products and interface design solutions for the mildly disabled elderly in the Chengdu & Chongqing region were proposed. The aging design strategy can to some extent improve the experience and satisfaction of elderly people using intelligent products.

Investigation and Analysis on the Demand for Home-based Elderly Care Services in Chunjiang Community, Lu'an City

Investigation and Analysis on the Demand for Home-based Elderly Care Services in Chunjiang Community, Lu'an City

Research on care preferences for the elderly and influencing factors in Zhejiang Province: A statistical and geographical approach.

The aging of the population is becoming an increasingly severe issue. How can we develop caring services for the elderly and promote healthy aging? Investigating care preferences is an essential step in addressing this issue. A self-designed questionnaire was employed to collect data online. The impact of personal circumstances on care preferences was ascertained using the chi-squared test and multivariate logistic regression. An optimal parameters-based geographical detector was introduced to examine the influence of spatially heterogeneous regional factors on care preferences. The online survey produced 1178 valid questionnaires. Home-based elderly care was the preference of 91.9% of respondents, followed by community-based care and medical-nursing care; institutional care was the least preferred alternative. Age, education, living style, and health states of the elderly significantly influenced the preferred care option. When compared to home-based elderly care, older respondents (odds ratio [OR] = 3.776) preferred institutional care, highly educated respondents preferred community-based care (higher education: OR = 5.206; secondary education: OR = 3.049) and medical-nursing care (higher education: OR = 4.484); the elderly living alone (OR = 0.101) excluded institutional care, and the elderly living with their children excluded non-family care method of institutional care (OR = 0.031) and medical-nursing care (OR = 0.391). Regional medical resources and old-age security significantly affect the preferences of the elderly (q-statistic [q] > 0.5); local economic development significantly affects community-based care (q > 0.6); the availability of financial subsidies significantly affects home-based care and medical-nursing care (q > 0.9); and the availability of institutional resources significantly affects the preference for institutional care (q > 0.8). We found that it is necessary to improve the level of medical care given by non-family members and care facilities, vigorously develop new methods of elderly care, promote humanistic care in non-family care settings, and increase available regional medical resources, financial subsidies, and social security. This study integrates economic and social perspectives to examine and analyze retirement willingness, thereby broadening the scope of social surveys and research methodologies, and offering valuable insights with potential directive implications.