Caregiving Trajectories and Unmet Care Needs in Later Life

The evolution of care networks accompanying older adults' changing care needs-and implications for unmet care needs-are not well described.

Using group-based trajectory models, we identify 4 incident care need patterns ("care need trajectory groups") for 1,038 older adults in the 2012-2018 National Health and Aging Trends Study and 5 caregiving patterns ("caregiving trajectory groups") and a transient group among their 4,106 caregivers. We model associations between care need/caregiving trajectory groups and the rate of (approximating the proportion of rounds with) unmet care needs. We illustrate how predicted rates vary by care need trajectory groups and by network composition for networks with 2 caregivers.

The percentage of rounds with unmet care needs varies from 13% among older adults with few, stable needs to 62% among those with many, stable needs (p < .01). In models, care need trajectory group is strongly associated with the rate of unmet care needs; among those with steep increasing care needs, network composition is also predictive. For older adults with steep increasing care needs, when 1 caregiver provides high, variable, and another medium, stable care hours, the predicted rate of unmet care needs is low (0.16) and similar to those with few, stable care needs (0.12).

The findings highlight the complexity and heterogeneity of older adults' care needs and caregiving patterns over time. For those with rapidly increasing needs, identifying and assessing the evolving care network may be a fruitful direction for forestalling unmet care needs.