The special counselling included dietary advice, guided exercise- and memory training, as well as enhanced monitoring of cardiovascular risk factors.
Providing senior citizens with lifestyle counselling services reduces their need for health care services, according to results of a study by the Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).
Its so-called Finger lifestyle intervention study examined the impacts of providing social and health care services to people between the ages of 60 and 77.
The study involved more than 1,200 people who were divided into two groups — one receiving lifestyle counselling for two years and the other group continuing to use standard health services.
The seniors received dietary advice, guided exercise- and memory training, as well as enhanced monitoring of cardiovascular risk factors. The subjects’ use of healthcare services was monitored over an eight-year period, a THL press release explained on Wednesday.
Those who received the lifestyle counselling spent an average of six days less in the hospital per year and made fewer visits to the emergency room than those who did not receive the counselling.
During a follow-up comparison hospital and emergency room costs were around 4,000 euros lower for the counselled seniors than their control group counterparts, according to the health institute.
The need for pricier health services for seniors can be reduced by offering the Finger lifestyle programme as widely as possible and can offer significant savings, according to Jenni Kulmala, a senior researcher at THL and gerontology professor at the University of Tampere.
“We’ve already observed the broad, positive effects of the Finger lifestyle programme on the elderly’s memory and cognitive functions, their incidence of disease and functional capacities. The new results also show the programme’s effectiveness in reducing the use of health services and the related costs,” Kulmala said in the release.
At the end of last year, there were around 1.3 million people in Finland over the age of 65 and that number is set to increase in coming years.
THL said that investments in lifestyle guidance programmes for the elderly is an effective way to to maintain their health and well-being, as well as curb healthcare costs related to aging.
According to the institute, even though the programme is quite well-known, just more than half of Finland’s wellbeing counties currently use the Finger lifestyle model.
It said the main reason widespread implementation of the model has faced hurdles is because coordination among wellbeing counties on senior lifestyle guidance programmes is still in progress.
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