Scopus scopus - exported 1/8/16

This chapter provides an overview of long term care (LTC) policies in Europe and other OECD countries in order to contextualize the findings presented in the other chapters of the book.

Beyond the neuro-psychiatric effects of specific dementia therapeutics, support given to patients and their informal carers is at stake today. One of the reasons why patients suffering from dementia are unable to remain at home is because their families are faced with so many difficulties. The study seeks to find out why elderly demented people are put into homes and what influences this decision.

The article deals with problems of informal (family) carers for elderly and disabled people in the context of foreign researchers and best policy practices. It also pays a great attention to the role of GPs in providing a support to family carers in the long-term care system in the Czech Republic. We have come to our conclusions on the basis of desk-research and face-to face interviews with 30 family carers for frail elderly and disabled children. Caring for dependent family members in their homes is an extremely difficult task in terms of mental and physical health of carers.

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly aware of the importance of the information needs of informal carers. However, little research has investigated their information needs comprehensively within the lived experience of being an informal carer. This paper presents a taxonomy of information needs of informal carers that assists in understanding their information needs more fully.

Bringing independent living services to market requires common service platforms that connect service providers to elderly people and informal carers. Realizing such common service platforms is challenging as issues like organizing model, openness, governance and subsidization models have to be decided upon. This paper elicits trade-offs in designing ICT platforms for independent living services by developing three generic value network configurations. We do so through an action design research project in which series of workshops and stakeholder interviews are done.

Background: there is limited understanding of symptoms and care in the last few months of life for adults dying from causes other than cancer.

Objective: the aim of the study is to compare the experiences in the community in the last 3 months of life of older adults dying from cancer and non-cancer causes.

Design: the study employed a retrospective cross-sectional survey of bereaved relatives.

Setting: the survey took place across eight cancer networks in England.

La Atención de Larga Duración ("Long term care") es la prestada porcuidadores informales (familia, amigos..) o profesionales (serviciossanitarios y sociales)La Dependencia, asociada habitualmente a enfermedades crónicas,provoca a menudo, la necesidad de atención en Residencias o Hospitalesde Larga Estancia, cuando ya no es posible prestar la atenciónadecuada en el domicilio.En pacientes institucionalizados deben realizarse valoracionesestructuradas y sistematizadas de manera periódica (al menos unavez al año), utilizando Instrumentos de medición adecuados y validados,con la finalidad de ide

In the UK, over six million people are unpaid informal carers for an ill, frail family member, or a friend who can’t manage to live independently, or whose health or wellbeing would deteriorate without their help. This saves the UK taxpayer over £119 billion a year (Carers UK, 2011). Although the role and experience of informal carers is unique to their situation, it is known that their health suffers and that they have an increased rate of mental and physical health problems.

This chapter provides an overview of the various aspects involved in the development of a home care system for the management of dementia, based on the experience of ALADDIN implementation. The ALADDIN platform aims to provide a trustworthy and reliable solution supporting patients and their informal carers in the management of the disease from home.

GPcog is a screening tool for dementia in the aged. It consists of nine cognitive items and six items assessing the daily living instrumental activities by an informal carer. This study was aimed to assess the reliability of the French version of the GPcog in a psychogeriatric population. Two hundred and eighty inpatients from a short-term psychogeriatric ward, with or without dementia, were examined. Scores on GPcog, MMSE and on a five-word memory test for screening dementia were compared to the final diagnosis of dementia.