Evaluation of care quality for disabled older patients living at home and in institutions.

Aims And Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the level of care quality received by disabled older patients residing at home vs. those residing in institutions.

Background: Taiwan has an aging society and faces issues of caring for disabled older patients, including increasing needs, insufficient resources and a higher economic burden of care.

[Developing the core competencies of long-term care professionals].

Longer average life expectancies and an ageing society have made long-term care an urgent and important issue in Taiwan. Although the implementation of Long-Term Care Ten-year Project four years ago has begun showing success in terms of assessing Taiwan's needs in terms of long-term care services and resources, there has been little forward progress in terms of training, recruiting and maintaining more competent professionals in the long-term care sector. This paper explores the current state of long-term care competency in Taiwan and educational strategies in place to improve the competency of long-term care professionals.

Normative physical fitness scores for community-dwelling older adults.

This study was designed to construct normative physical fitness scores for older, functionally independent adults living in the community. The Physical Activities Readiness Questionnaire and Barthel Index were initialized to screen those who have heart illness, arthritis, and functional dependence. After providing informed consent, each participant was instructed to perform seven tests in five categories, including body mass index, muscle strength/endurance (grasp test and 30-s chair stand test), balance (open-eye stand on right foot), flexibility (chair sit-and-reach test), and aerobic endurance (2- and 3-min step tests with preset cadence).

[The education and training of manpower in elderly & long-term care].

With the rapid expansion of the aged population, elderly & long-term care has become a significant issue in Taiwan, as in many developed countries, such as Japan. Service resources in long-term care have benefitted profoundly from investment and development in the past 15 years in Taiwan, but the education and training of manpower in long-term care has only recently begun to be addressed. The purpose of this article is to describe the education and training of nursing manpower in long-term care in Taiwan and in other countries.

[Integrated care systems].

The development of professionalism in the health care industry has resulted in the existence of distinct lines of demarcation between disciplines. Duplication or absence of services, or lack of connection between services has made it difficult to respond to the needs of people with chronic conditions. With the rapid growth of the population with such conditions, the concept of integrated care has been proposed in order to increase accessibility, quality of care, cost sustainability and user satisfaction for such patients.