Caregiving Trajectories and Unmet Care Needs in Later Life.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

The evolution of care networks accompanying older adults' changing care needs-and implications for unmet care needs-are not well described.

Research design and methods

Using group-based trajectory models, we identify 4 incident care need patterns ("care need trajectory groups") for 1,038 older adults in the 2012-2018 National Health and Aging Trends Study and 5 caregiving patterns ("caregiving trajectory groups") and a transient group among their 4,106 caregivers. We model associations between care need/caregiving trajectory groups and the rate of (approximating the proportion of rounds with) unmet care needs. We illustrate how predicted rates vary by care need trajectory groups and by network composition for networks with 2 caregivers.

Results</

SUBMITTER: Freedman VA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11973558 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature