Table 1.

Description of cost variables.

Cost type	Cost categories	Description
Direct costs	Daily supplies	Costs associated with medication, special testing, material supplies (feeding tubes, nasal oxygen, urinary catheters, etc.), dressing set, bed pads, adult diapers, tissue paper care, transportation, medical procedure, and physical therapy
	Day/night care	Costs associated with paying for adult day health/day care or overnight care
	Formal care	Costs associated with paying for a licensed practical nurse, a certified nursing assistant, trained caregivers, untrained caregivers, or any kind of paid providers
	Home renovation	Costs associated with various modifications that can make it easier for aging residents to navigate through and live in their homes, including brighter lighting, handrails, stair lifts, and accessible workspaces. These home modifications can range in cost from a few baht for a brighter light bulb to thousands of baht for significant remodeling (stair lifts, etc.)
	Medical devices	Costs associated with back brace, bedpan, blood sugar testing, bubble mattress, chair for bathing, hearing aid, manual home care bed, nebulizers, overbed table, oxygen saturation monitor, oxygen tanks, single cane, suction, tripod cane, walker, and wheelchair
Indirect cost	Informal care (opportunity cost)	The cost of informal care that family members offered without payment. It constituted productivity losses due to lost work time and was estimated using the human capital approach, which measured output losses in lost earnings