Long-Term Care: A Case Study

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Introduction: Defining Long-term Care Long-term care (LTC) is a scope of services created to meet the medical and non-medical needs of individuals with chronic illness or disabilities. Furthermore, it’s designed to provide ongoing help with the most basic human needs such as eating, bathing, dressing, and mobility. In other words, LTC assists with the basic tasks of everyday life, also known as the activities of daily living which allow the individual to live as independently as possible within his/her community (Long-term Care.gov, 2015). The setting can be formal or informal since it also allows access to other services provided in institutions. Need and type of care required varies for each individual and may change during their lifetime. Because of the advances in medical technology and medical science, individuals are living longer and many will need long-term care for at least a short period of time during their lifetime. To be sure, individuals of all ages may require these kinds of services, not just the elderly. However, it is more common among the elderly. According to The National Center on Caregiving, approximately forty-three percent of the eleven million individuals who need and will pay for LTC are under the age of sixty-five. As the population ages the percentage…show more content…
This undermines its original purpose and yet Americans, particularly the middle-class, fail to plan for their future long-term care needs. America’s dependency on federally funded programs to upkeep these costs have aided in up-surging the unsustainable levels in health care spending (KFF, 2011). Many see LTC costs as the government’s responsibility and or as an entitlement of having worked and paid taxes. Most are unaware of the lack of specific funding by the government for these services and often learn about it when they actually require the services for

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