Selected issues in long-term care: profile of cognitive disability of nursing home residents and the use of informal and formal care by elderly in the community.

In summary, this section suggests that hospital care and physician office care are frequently used community health care services. There were relatively few differences by sex, age, or race in patterns of community health service use. There were differences by sex, age, race, and level of ADL disability in the number of informal helpers a frail elder used. Marital patterns appear to be an important underlying influence on the number of informal helpers. When a spouse is present, he or she becomes the primary and only helper in many instances. The number of informal helpers that a frail elder had was associated with an increased risk of mortality and institutionalization. Overall, there is somewhat more stability than change in the number of informal helpers over the 2-year period. This section, however, could not identify if the composition of the informal helper network remained the same over time.