The Application of Accessibility of Dementia Care Resources in Taiwan

• Main Authors: HSU, MIN-HUA, 許珉華
• Other Authors: YEN, CHIA-FENG
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/bpqt9w

碩士 === 慈濟大學 === 公共衛生學系碩士班 === 107 === Background and Purpose：Since the prevalence and incidence of dementia are increasing, the demand for dementia care is increasing. Furthermore, the problem of cognitive impairment is the main reason that makes dementia patients’ function of Activities of Daily Living worse and needs others to take care of them. Therefore, it will be an important issue to allocate dementia care resources. In order to make patients with dementia to obtain care resources equally. We applied the Profit-Willing Distance (PWD) and the Tolerance-Limited Distance (TLD) to explore the spatial accessibility between the dementia patients and the care providers. Method：This was a secondary data analysis study. The participants were divided into two groups. One was adult patients with dementia who have Disability certification and live in the community in Taiwan (n=9704). Another was the dementia care providers (n=1782). We used Geographic Information System (GIS) to address the location and calculate the nearest distance between two groups. Using the Joinpoint Regression Program to obtain PWD and TLD. Finally, we combined the results and defined the accessibility of resources in each county. Result：We divided the dementia care resources in different cities in Taiwan into 3 types. One was Hsinchu City and Chiayi City which have high accessibility resources. Another was the city which has medium accessibility resources, such as Taipei City and Hualien County. The other was Yunlin County and Taitung County which have low accessibility resources. Conclusion：We suggest the policymakers could consider the demand for dementia and the two indicators of PWD and TLD before allocating the resources. Besides, we suggest the policymakers to take the priority order for resource allocation as a reference. First is the city which has low accessibility resources. Second is the city which has medium accessibility resources. And the last is the city which has high accessibility resources.