SATURDAY, Sept. 28, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Social care services provide a self-esteem and morale boost to housebound senior citizens, even when elderly people say they don't need such services and don't welcome them, a new British report says.
Researchers with the Growing Older program, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, suggest that care services managers act as quickly as possible to provide help to elderly people who have recently experienced a loss of autonomy due to poor health or a fall or other kind of accident.
The targeting of home care services for people most in need has improved during the last 10 years, but some older, frail people still live alone with little or no help. Some newly housebound people find it difficult to welcome any kind of help and they're not always the best judges of their immediate needs, the researchers say.
They found that over a six-month period, housebound older people who received services had higher self-esteem than those who didn't get the services, which include such things as having a home help or care assistant, attending a day center, or moving to sheltered housing.
The study included 35 people (26 women, nine men) aged 75 and older who lived alone and had developed a physical disability within the previous three months that prevented them from going out of their home without help.
More information
To learn how to get more out of life in your later years, visit the National Institute on Aging.
