Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess demographic trends of a long-term care institution (LTCI) for the aged throughout 24 years and to discuss the results considering regulations and demographic, socioeconomic, and epidemiological changes in Brazil during this period.
Methods: We assessed administrative data of 394 residents of a Brazilian LTCI between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 2013. We calculated age at admission, age at death, length of stay (LOS), and median age of the residents on December 31 for each year from 1990 to 2013. Annual mortality index and total number of admissions and discharges also were analyzed. We used the Jonckheere-Terpstra trend test and 1-way ANOVA for statistical analysis.
Results: We observed a significant statistical increased trend of the mean age at admission, of the median age of the residents, and of the median LOS throughout the period. There was no increased or decreased trend of the median age at death.
Conclusions: The increased trend of the mean age at admission and the median age of the residents may reflect improvements in health, socioeconomic status, life expectancy, and the development of protective regulations for older adults in Brazil. The increased trend of the median LOS may reflect the aforementioned improvements, but we expect a future inversion of this trend due to the admission of older, sicker, and more functionally dependent elderly individuals.
Keywords: Homes for the aged; demographic trends; length of stay.
Copyright © 2015 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.