Background: Estimations of life expectancies (LE) in health and ill health are important for planning future health care support. This study aimed at quantifying whether an increased LE is accompanied by an increase in the duration of life with dementia (DemLE) in Hong Kong SAR. Methods: Two parameters from a logistic model were used to fit the overall trend of the weighted prevalence of dementia. Abridged age- and sex-specific life tables and Sullivan's method were used to calculate dementia-free LE (DemFLE) for 1998 and 2013. Results: In 2013, among elderly individuals in Hong Kong aged 65 years, men had lived with dementia for 1.8 years and women for 3.6 years. These values are similar to those for subjects aged ≥85 years, while the proportion of DemLE was much greater at advanced ages. Elderly female individuals tend to experience a greater number of years with dementia than males. Conclusion: Our results indicate although LE has increased for all older age groups over time, the increase in DemFLE has not been greater than the gain in LE, suggesting an absolute expansion of the burden of dementia to the community between 1998 and 2013. The results suggest that more caregiving resources and manpower will be needed in the future as the population ages.

Objective This study aimed at exploring the attempters’ perception of community social services included any barriers to seeking help and services. Method The participants were patients with self-harming behavior aged 15 years or above. A set of guiding questions were designed to explore the general barriers and accessibility to community social services. A voice recording was made, which was later converted into a text transcript and then preceded for content analysis with co-occurrence and similarity matrix interpretation. Two males and nine females with a history of self-harm aged between 24 and 58 years were recruited for the interviews. Result The participants had diverse experiences and backgrounds, and attitudes toward community social services. However, there was a shared perception of the need to enhance community social services. There were four main themes and 12 sub themes identified. The main theme included the service availability, service accessibility, affordability and acceptability. For details, participants were unaware of the available types of care/social services in the community, and were unaware about the nearby social services. They also suggested extending service hours and focused services should be offered to help people with different backgrounds and needs. Actually, those with experience of service utilization had both positive and negative perspectives and they gave suggestions for service delivery, mainly extending service hours and offering focused services such as for gambling control and financial planning. In view of interaction with service providers, counseling skills and trust were highly appreciated by the participants. Conclusion The results identified common circumstances of falling into financial hardship (gambling) and social fragmentation (divorce, poor family relationships, and poor marital relationships), which also suggested to enhance services on center location, service arrangement, and skill of caregivers.

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