Adult day care programs are community‐based group programs that provide daytime services in a protective setting outside of the home. Adult day care includes social and health care services for a population of adults with physical, mental, and/or social disabilities. With the help of adult day care services, chronically disabled individuals are able to continue to live at home. Origins of adult day care include geriatric day programs in Russia in the 1930s and programs in Great Britain post World War II. In the United States, during the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, adult day programs significantly developed in conjunction with federal and state initiatives to contain rising costs of long‐term care residential facilities. The term adult day care evolved to be called adult day services (ADS).
Programs and Services
Adult day programs are described by three primary service models: the medical model (21%), the social model with no medical care (37%), and the combination...
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Dabelko HI (2004) Individual and environmental factors that influence length of stay in adult day health care programs. J Gerontol Soc Work 43(1):83–105
Gaugler JE, Zarit SH, Townsend A, Stephens MP, Greene R (2003) Evaluating community‐based programs for dementia caregivers: the cost implications of adult day services. J Appl Gerontol 22(1):118–133
National Council on the Aging/National Adult Day Services Association (1997) Standards and guidelines for adult day services. National Council on Aging, Washington, DC
Partners in Caregiving Adult Day Services Program (2003) National study of adult day services, 2001–2002. Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston‐Salem, NC
Tousignant M, Hebert R, Derosiers J, Hollander MJ (2003) Economic evaluation of a geriatric day hospital: cost–benefit analysis based on functional autonomy changes. Age Aging 32:53–59
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Woodhead EL, Zarit SH, Braungart ER, Rovine MR, Femia EE (2005) Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia: the effects of physical activity at adult day service centers. Am J Alzh Dis Other Dem 20(3):171–179
Suggested Resources
Children of Aging Parents Organization; www.caps4caregivers.org
International Association of Homes and Services for the Aging; www.iahsa.net/
National Adult Day Services Association; www.nadsa.org
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation adult day services news and reports; www.rwjf.org/newsroom and www.rwjf.org/research.
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Dearborn, M.J. (2008). Adult Day Care. In: Loue, S.J., Sajatovic, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Aging and Public Health. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-33754-8_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-33754-8_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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