Eldercare services for people with and without a dementia diagnosis: an analysis of Swedish registry data

Background: The growing number of people living with dementia (PlwD) implies an increase in the demand for eldercare services in Sweden like in many other countries. Few studies have analyzed the use of eldercare services for PlwD. The aim of the present study is to investigate the association between demographic factors (age, sex, cohabiting status) and the use of municipal eldercare services (including both home care and residential care) for older adults with dementia compared to older adults without dementia in Sweden. Methods: This study used several nationwide Swedish registers targeting all individuals aged 65 and above living in Sweden in 2014 and still alive 31st of March 2015 (n = 2,004,409). The primary outcomes variables were different types of eldercare service, and all participants were clustered based on age, sex, cohabiting status, and dementia diagnosis. In addition to descriptive statistics, we performed multivariate logistic regression models for binary outcomes and linear regression models for continuous outcomes. Results: Results showed that (1) older age is a significantly strong predictor for the use of eldercare services, although PlwD start using eldercare at an earlier age compared with people without dementia; (2) women tend to receive more eldercare services than men, especially in older age, although men with dementia who live alone are more likely than women living alone to receive eldercare; (3) having a dementia diagnosis is a strong predictor for receiving eldercare. However, it was also found that a substantial proportion of men and women with dementia did not receive any eldercare services. Conclusions: We found that people with a dementia diagnosis use more as well as start to use eldercare services at an earlier age than people without dementia. However, further research is needed to investigate why a substantial part of people with a dementia diagnosis does not have any eldercare at all and what the policy implications of this might be.