Public Health

in a chair; and a slightly higher percent (13 percent) are completely bedridden. Among the patients in Baltimore’s nursing homes, a somewhat higher proportion than one-third are confined to bed part or all of the time. This proportionate difference in bed-confinement between the patients at home and those in nursing homes is small (32 percent versus 38 percent) but statistically reliable. About 15 percent of the I.V.N.A. patients never walk. Some 10 percent walk only with someone’s help, and another 2 percent get about with some mechanical aid such as a wheelchair or walker. Thus about one-fourth of the home-nursing patients have