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Living on cruise ships is cost effective for elderly people
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     Living on a cruise ship provides a better quality of life and is cost effective for elderly people who need help to live independently, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society ( 2004;52: 1-4).

    Cruise ships have better health facilities than most care homes for elderly people

    Credit: JEFF GREENBERG/IMAGE WORKS/TOPFOTO

    Elderly people often choose assisted living facilities, nursing homes, 24 hours a day home caregivers, or family support. Living on a cruise ship might be a better choice, says Lee Lindquist, instructor of medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and a geriatrician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. People older than 65 who enjoy travel, have good cognitive function, but need some help in daily living are ideal candidates for care on a cruise ship.

    The typical resident in a US assisted living facility is an 80 year old (age range 66 to 94) widowed, white, ambulatory woman who needs help with about two activities of daily living, such as walking, bathing, toileting, feeding, dressing, and transfers (for example, from bed to chair).

    Such people might do better on a cruise ship, at a similar cost, even for many years. Dr Lindquist told the BMJ that she had accompanied her parents on a Caribbean cruise and saw that many passengers were just like her geriatric patients—some used walking frames, canes, or wheelchairs—but they enjoyed a better quality of life than patients in assisted living facilities. "Many had taken 20 or 30 cruises over the past two years, almost every other week," she said.

    Dr Lindquist compared the amenities and costs in assisted living facilities with accommodation on cruise ships, using a Markov analysis. Both cruise ships and assisted living facilities offer single room apartments with a private bathroom, a shower with easy access, some help, cable television, security services, and entertainment.

    Cruise ships, however, have superior health facilities—one or more doctors, nurses available 24 hours a day, defibrillators, equipment for dealing with medical emergencies, and the ability to give intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

    Assisted living facilities almost never have doctors on site and seldom have nurses available 24 hours, Dr Lindquist said.

    Cruise ships also have a higher ratio of employees to passengers than assisted living facilities.

    In the United States, an assisted living facility costs about $2360 (£1290; 1850) a month or $28 689 a year. In the northeast and the west of the United States, costs are higher.

    A one month cruise in November in the Caribbean would cost $2651. Living on board for the entire year would cost $33 260. The authors calculate that the long term cost for a person to live on a cruise ship from the age of 80 until his or her death would be $230 497 compared with $228 075 for an assisted living facility.(Janice Hopkins Tanne)