Extending the effectiveness of home care for elders through low-cost assistive equipment.

A recent demonstration project in Massachusetts suggests that low-technology, low-cost assistive equipment has the potential to make traditional publicly-funded home care programs for elders more effective. The demonstration also identified implementation problems that must be addressed if public home care programs are to be a vehicle for making assistive equipment available to functionally disabled elders living in the community. The demonstration was carried out by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston in cooperation with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, and was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Home Care Research Initiative.