A Study on Growing Needs for Adult Day Service Center in Seoul under the New Longterm Care System

노인수발보장제도 도입에 따른 노인주간보호시설의 수요증가와 시설변화에 관한 연구

Introduction of new longterm care policy for elderly in Korea would change many aspects of elderly care service facilities. Especially elderly home care services like adult daycare centers will expand drastically after beginning of longterm care insurance. The purpose of this study is to estimate demand of adult daycare centers by comparing with the U.S and Japanese cases. Korean government is expecting that adult daycare centers will expand ten times within 4 years. This estimate is exceeding the facility demand estimate of the U.S. and Japan. The results of population study and expecting growth rate of adult daycare centers in Seoul indicate that more than 300 centers, 4 times of the number of existing centers, are in need based on Seoul elderly population in 2004. To supply these numbers of facilities in short period, more in depth study should be followed. Existing adult daycare facilities' in Seoul were analyzed by their building and management types. Interior spaces of adult daycare centers in Korea are similar to the U.S. and Japan in space arrangements but much smaller in size. In depth study of space programming as well as overall demand survey of adult daycare centers is urgently in need for more realistic expansion of adult daycare centers.