Dementia Cregiving in the United States: Implications for Long-term Care

Informal care is an important source of long-term care (LTC) for persons with dementia and cognitive impairments. Using the Aging Demographic and Memory Study (ADAMS) dataset this study analyzes a sequence of predisposing, enabling and need factors that jointly predict the amount of informal and formal health care received by individuals with dementia in the US. The „altruistic‟ motivation to provide care increases the level of informal care and delays the institutionalization. Caregivers‟ physical, emotional stress and change in perceived health status associated with caregiving increase the use of formal home health care services. The need for supervision to protect the consequences of impaired judgment significantly increases the amount of both informal care and formal home health care. The findings have profound social and health implications for expanding the publicly funded LTC needs for individuals with dementia to capture the unique nature of the disease. JEL classification: I12; J14; J22.