Home Health Care Stats: Men vs. Women

As we touched on in a previous post, the goal of home health care is to help those suffering from debilitating medical conditions live independently at home for as long as possible (these are very often seniors). To meet these goals, a team of health care professionals provides services to help with the senior’s activities of daily living (ADLs) like eating, bathing, physical therapy, and medication management. Roughly 1.5 million patients received home health care in 2007 according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and these numbers have surely grown significantly given the record number of Americans living well beyond the age of 65 today.In 2012, the CDC released a report estimating the differences in the use of home health care between elderly men and women in the U.S. The results show that women are much more likely to receive home health care then men, although this gap narrows as each gender’s age increases. Below are some noteworthy stats from the report.

Rate of home health care use

• Women 65 and over are 55% more likely to use home health care than men of the same age group
• The rate for women 65-74 is 60% higher than the rate for men in the same age group
• Women 85 and over are 22% more likely to use home health care than men of the same age group

Post-acute care, length of service and payment source

• Elderly men are more likely than elderly women to have had an inpatient stay immediately prior to receiving home health care
• Compared to men of the same age group, women 65 and over are more likely to have received home health care for one year or more, and nearly twice as likely to have Medicaid as their primary payment source

Services received

• 84% of home health care patients (both men and women) used skilled nursing services
• 40% used physical therapy
• 37% received assistance with ADLs
• 17% received homemaker services
• 14% received wound care
• 14% received dietary counseling

Chronic conditions

Eight common chronic conditions were examined in the report. Among elderly home health care patients:

• 48% had essential hypertension
• 39% had heart disease
• 32% had diabetes
• 15% had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allied conditions
• 13% had osteoarthritis and allied disorders (excluding spine)
• 10% had dementia
• 9% had malignant neoplasms
• 8% had cerebrovascular disease
• The report revealed that women are more likely than men to have hypertension and twice as likely to have osteoarthritis. Men are almost twice as likley to have malignant neoplasms

The CDS hopes that by identifying specific characteristics of the elderly population with these findings, health care providers will be better equipped to meet the elderly’s needs.

Physicians Choice Private Duty currently serving Omaha, Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa provides seniors and their families a complete understanding of geriatric care options and helps families maneuver through the challenges of the system. Get your free Cost Comparison guide by clicking here . Or contact us for a free consultation, or just to say hello!

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