Fearing infection and isolation, relatives are turning to home care as new services make that option more possible for many
| Photographs by Jeremy M. Lange for The Wall Street Journal
The pandemic is reshaping the way Americans care for their elderly, prompting family decisions to avoid nursing homes and keep loved ones in their own homes for rehabilitation and other care.
Americans have long relied on institutions to care for the frailest seniors. The U.S. has the largest number of nursing-home residents in the world. But families and some doctors have been reluctant to send patients to such facilities, fearing infection and isolation in places ravaged by Covid-19, which has caused more than 115,000 deaths linked to U.S. long-term-care institutions.
The drop-off has persisted since spring, including at times when the virus’s spread was subdued. In the summer, when many hospitals were performing near-normal levels of the kinds of procedures that often result in nursing-home stays, referrals to nursing homes remained down.
Occupancy in U.S. nursing homes is down by 15%, or more than
195,000 residents, since the end of 2019, driven both by deaths and by
the fall in admissions, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data
shows. (Click To Continue Reading)
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