ABSTRACT
ASPE has an interest in understanding the national profile of older adults with dementia and their caregivers. This chartbook uses nationally representative data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and the National Study on Caregiving (NSOC) to describe older adults living in community settings with dementia, the type and amount of care they received, the characteristics of their informal caregivers, and the impact of caregiving on their informal caregivers. Older adults living in community settings were defined as individuals who were aged 65 or older living outside of nursing homes. For the purposes of this chartbook, only individuals who met the criteria for the NHATS dementia classification of "probable dementia" were considered to have dementia. This was a conservative definition, because individuals with mild cognitive impairment or those with early stages of dementia (i.e., individuals with possible dementia) are likely to be classified as not having dementia. Thus, the estimates for the dementia population presented in this chartbook were primarily based on the population of community-dwelling older adults who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia, or with middle or late-stage dementia.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions and views expressed in this report are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Health and Human Services, the contractor or any other funding organization.