Computational Modeling of Caregiver Stress
to bring the number of older adults to 100 . Each caregiver agent may become older adult in need of care for themselves . Finally , data is collected on all agents . These actions repeat with each new step throughout the duration of the experiment .
Experiment and Results
The experiment demonstrates that
in our model , providing services and support for the caregiver can reduce the stress of caregivers , potentially helping them to continue to care for their family members at home for a longer period of time . To model the effects of this , we presumed that the relief would reduce the stress proportional to the amount of the time relief relative to the total time . Taking care of the older adult for M hours a day , every day causes the stress . We use less than 24 hours per day ( 18 hours per day ) to account for time the older adult is asleep and the time the caregiver is asleep . The adult day care hours would then also be included in hours of relief for the caregiver . Although the caregiver may still be responsible for the older adult , we are looking for effective hours of relief for the care provider . Using N for the effective adult day care hours per week , we modeled our expectation that the stress would be reduced by the fraction ( 7 * 18−N ) / ( 7 * 18 ). We ran our model with and without relief for the care providers . Relief was provided at different levels — 8 , 16 , 40 , 70 , 84 , and 98 hours per week . Again , our model ’ s step represents a whole year to smooth out the week-to-week variations in caregiver stress .
Experimentation with the model allowed us to examine whether the number of hours of relief per week had an effect on caregiver stress . Table 1 presents the results of this experiment and shows the difference between the stress levels with and without the relief . Each run was for 100 simulated years without any adult day-care ( establishing the baseline ) followed by 100 years with the specified weekly hours of adult daycare . The baseline caregiver stress was established when zero hours of relief were provided . An increase of eight hours per week did not reduce the caregiver stress a statistically significant amount in 30 runs of the model . Increasing relief to 16 hours per week , however , showed statistically significant differences in the average level of caregiver stress compared with the baseline caregiver stress in 30 runs of the model , with continued statistically significant reductions for higher levels of relief . What is important about the statistical tests is that there is a real reduction in the caregiver stress for some level of relief . The specific number of hours where this first occurs is a result of the modeling assumptions and should not be taken as justification for a specific number of hours of relief per week sufficient for caregivers to continue providing care in the long term .
Discussion and Implications
Adult day centers provide a costeffective specialized health and social support services for the individual with dementia and a form of respite for the caregiver . Typically , costs for adult day centers average $ 72 per day , $ 26,280 per year . Compared with the cost of a non-medical home health aide ($ 168 for an eight-hour day , $ 61,320 per year ), $ 43,756 per year cost of assisted living , or $ 83,230 to $ 92,977 per year for nursing home care ( Alzheimer ’ s Association , 2014 ), adult day centers are a feasible alternative for enhancing the quality of life for both care recipients and caregivers .
Beyond the cost savings for the longterm care system and the family , studies have shown that the use of adult day centers
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