A Research Of Social Welfare Service For The Dementia Elderly

Alzheimer’s dementia is a disease which develops in old age and is caused by progressive degeneration of the brain. Symptoms of memory loss, decline in orientation of time and space come first in illness, and then come cognitive disorders, mood disorders, and degradation of daily life ability and even complete disability of self-care. Alzheimer’s disease has become one of the four major killers affecting the old people’s physical and mental health. Because of its incurable nature and illness particularity, the patients become weak group in the elderly, facing difficulties of lives, economic pressure and mental torture in daily life. With the deepening of China’s aging, it is expected that by the end of2013the country’s aging population will exceed200million, and calculating with the average prevalence rate as5.6%, there will be more than10million people with dementia in the whole country. Therefore, facing the severe challenges of aging problem, we should put it in a tremendously important position to help the seniors with dementiaWith the data from questionnaires and interviews collated in the city of Changsha, this research is on the differences in the quality of life, social support and welfare needs between a group of elderly with dementia and a control group of non-demented elderly. According to the SPSS statistics, life quality and social support of the patients group is inferior to the control group’s. The care service provided by patients’ family cannot meet their needs. According to the survey, the author analyzes the causes of the lower scores of patient’s life quality, proposes to improve the quality of life for patients by providing better social welfare. The basic idea of developing social welfare for the elderly with dementia is "one center and two basic principles", which means concentrating on improving the quality of life for people with dementia, and following the two principles:pursuing both equity and efficiency, and getting family, society and the government involved in improving social welfare for the elderly with dementia.