Italy is preparing to reach a record one million over-90s in the next 3 years. A figure that immediately turns the spotlight on the need to boost care at home and in nursing homes. The research highlights how this demographic figure must necessarily lead to improvement from a health care perspective. Italia Longeva's 2024 survey, presented yesterday at the Ministry of Health, aims to take a snapshot of the country's long-term care trends, that is, the territorial care offered to frail citizens in response to their needs. According to estimates, in 20 years, the frail elderly will be nearly 19 million, and one-third will be over-65 at risk of social isolation. Thus, there is a growing need to strengthen the home care system. This is in the face of the fact that the over-65s who prefer care at home increased from 252 thousand (1.95%) in 2014 to nearly 550 thousand (3.89%) in 2023. In addition, data provided by the regions to the Ministry of Health, show that from 2022 to 2023, 80 thousand more elderly people benefited from home care. In addition to these, there remains a 2.88% of over-65s who used care in nursing homes in the past year, thus demonstrating the importance of strengthening these facilities as well. This need is dictated by the fact that we want to prevent aging and the mismanagement of it from becoming a real disease in this country, which is already facing the consequences of demographic pressure.
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