Background

The aging of the population has become a worldwide phenomenon. This leads to increased demand for services and with limited resources it is important to find a way to estimate how resources can be match to those with greatest need.

Aims

To analyse time use and costs in institutional care in relation to different levels of cognitive and functional capacity for elderly persons.

Methods

The population consisted of all institutionalised inhabitants, 75 + years, living in a rural community (n = 176). They were clinically examined by physicians and interviewed by nurses. Staff and informal care-giving time was examined with the RUD (Resource Utilization in Dementia) instrument.

Results

Tobit regression analyses showed that having dementia increased the amount of ADL care time with 0.9 h when compared to those not having dementia, whereas each loss of an ADL function (0–6) added 0.6 h of ADL care time. Analysing the total care time use, the presence of dementia added more than 9 h, while each loss of one ADL function added 2.9 h. There were some informal care contributions, however with no correlation to severity in dependency. The estimated cost for institutional care increased with more than 85% for people being dependent in 5–6 ADL activities compared to persons with no functional dependency, and with 30% for persons with dementia compared to the non-demented.

Conclusion

There is a variation in time use in institutional settings due to differences in ADL dependency but also whether dementia is present or not. This variation has implications for costs of institutional care.