With the Baby Boom generation approaching 80, AARP released a new Scorecard rating states based on long-term care for old residents. Alaska ranks fifth in the nation overall but AARP warns that doesn’t mean everything is perfect.
The Scorecard looks at long-term care for older adults, people with physical disabilities and family care givers. AARP conducted the study, with the help of The Commonwealth Fun and SCAN Foundation, to provide states with an idea of where they need to improve in long-term care.
Senior vice president of AARP and the public policy institute Susan Reinhard was the lead author of the Scorecard. She says it’s well known that people want to live at home, as opposed to in health care facilities, as long as they can and this report looks at the way states facilitate that.
“To do that you need to look at a lot of different things. It’s not just one thing, it’s actually 26 different measures of how a state has the highest level of performance in providing the kind of support that you need to be able to live at home independently.”
This Scorecard is an update from the one published in 2011. Reinhard says although there have been changes in the states, there wasn’t a single state that shifted dramatically in care.
Long-term care doesn’t just include the health care centers. Reinhard says there are several factors in long-term care that were looked at in the Scorecard.
“But 90% of the care that is provided is from a family member. It starts out with things like grocery shopping, transportation, driving someone to the doctors, making meals, helping with banking and then it shifts into more personal care as the person gets more frail.”
State president of AARP for Alaska Rosemary Hagevig was surprised that Alaska ranked so high on the list. She says when she was the executive director for Catholic Communities Services for Southeast Alaska she learned firsthand the hardship of receiving funds in communities that are so geographically spread out and isolated.
“That’s one of the things that we do encounter in Alaska, most of our population centers are pretty geographically dispersed so it automatically costs us more money in this state. Generally the federal funds are allocated to states based on population. Anytime there’s a population allocation, as you can guess, Alaska comes out on the tight end of the stick.”
Hagevig says when family members take care of their elders it can be a cheaper way to take care of them-- to a point. If the elder needs constant care, the family member can lose their job. That’s why, Hagevig says, a great alternative is an adult day facility, where the elder goes to a center for the day to be cared for but returns home at night.
Currently, Minnesota is leading the nation in long-term care. Reinhard says the way Alaska can inch its way to number one is to work on support for family care givers.
