ABSTRACT
This chapter describes empirically and conceptually what many have long thought necessary—a unified agenda in health care policy for those who are aging and those who have disabilities. The five overlapping issues in the health care policy involves a series of analytically separate but empirically related phenomena: the almost inexorable increase in the prevalence of disabling conditions in our society; the continually changing nature of those conditions. It also includes the effect of the processes of “technicalization” and “medicalization” on the care that is being delivered; the implications, difficulties, and possibilities of a shift in care from institutions into the home; and the identification and empowerment of those traditionally perceived as in need of care. In their most traditional form, agency-directed home health services are intended to meet a person’s episodic acute-care needs during post-hospital convalescence. The model has, however, been extended to the elderly client with a chronic condition.
