Homebound

Objectives: Family caregivers play an important role in maintaining the oral health of homebound older adults. Thus, this preliminary study investigated family caregivers' burdens and the oral care they provide to homebound older patients. Methods: A cross‐sectional survey was conducted. A questionnaire was distributed to 230 family caregivers of homebound older patients. We used the Japanese version of the Zarit Burden Interview (J‐ZBI) to measure caregiver burden. The cut‐off score for the J‐ZBI was 21 points.

The homebound population relies on both paid and family caregivers to meet their complex care needs. In order to examine the association between intensity of caregiving support and leaving the home, we identified a population of community-dwelling, homebound Medicare beneficiaries age ≥65 (n = 1,852) enrolled in the 2015 National Health and Aging Trends Study and measured the support they received from paid and family caregivers. Those who had ≥20 h of caregiving support per week had 50% less odds of being "exclusively homebound" (rarely or never leave home) (OR 0.56, p < .01).