Long-Term Care Service Utilization Among Older Adults
Summary
The utilisation of long-term care (LTC) services by older adults has expanded in response to global demographic ageing and shifting policy priorities towards ageing in place. Across high-income settings, the balance between institutional and home-based services is in flux, with many systems seeking to contain costs while preserving functional independence. Demand for residential care remains substantial for those with advanced cognitive or physical impairments, whereas home and community-based supports—ranging from home help and visiting nursing to respite care and assistive technology—have grown in prominence. Patterns of use are shaped by individual factors such as multimorbidity, functional status and socioeconomic resources, as well as by broader determinants including family caregiving availability, service financing models and local service capacity. Recent research highlights the importance of predictive tools for optimising resource allocation, the role of social determinants in care uptake, and the economic impact of coexisting chronic conditions on combined health and LTC expenditures. Together, these insights inform policy debates on sustainable funding, equitable access and integrated care pathways that better align service provision with evolving needs.
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Long-Term Care Service Utilization Among Older Adults publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in long-term care service utilization among older adults across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Ageing in place: The preference and policy goal for older adults to remain living in their own homes and communities rather than moving to institutional care.
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs): Fundamental self-care tasks such as bathing, dressing and feeding, used to assess functional status and care needs.
Respite care: Temporary relief services for informal caregivers, providing short-term institutional or in-home support to care recipients.
Multimorbidity: The co-occurrence of two or more chronic health conditions in an individual, often driving complexity in service use and expenditures.
References
- Disease-specific health spending by age, sex, and type of care in Norway: a national health registry study. BMC Medicine (2023).
- Predicting Long-Term Care Service Demands for Cancer Patients: A Machine Learning Approach. Cancers (2023).
- Social factors influencing utilization of home care in community-dwelling older adults: a scoping review. BMC Geriatrics (2021).
- The associations of multimorbidity with the sum of annual medical and long-term care expenditures in Japan. BMC Geriatrics (2019).
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