Ageing, Care Need and Quality of Life: The Perspective of Care Givers and People in Need of Care

Increasing life expectancy and population ageing leads to a rising number of elderly people in need of care. Improvements in health may counterbalance this trend to some extent but cannot fully compensate it. In this proceedings, Gabriele Doblhammer and Rembrandt Scholz present combined expertise in the field of health, care need and care resources. Various care need projections, based on diverse projection methods, give a detailed overview on probable future developments of the number of people in need of care, mainly for Germany. A special emphasis is put on the future number of people with dementia in Germany. Next to that the authors explore past trends in health and care need in relation to increases in life expectancy and discuss the effects of sex, smoking, obesity and other determinants that influence health care need in older ages. The trends in health and care need are additionally viewed in relation to trends in the number of care need providers and their quality of life. This book is a valuable reference for academics in the social sciences, especially those with a focus on health care and demography and for practitioners in the field of health care.