Web of science - exported 12/7/2016

Background: Patients with life-limiting illnesses are dependent on their families and healthcare providers for care. In Malaysia, there is a lack of data exploring the experiences and needs of patients and carers. It is not known whether these needs are being identified accurately by the palliative care providers.

Aim.  To examine the changing needs of Chinese family caregivers before and after stroke survivors’ discharge from hospital.

Background.  Stroke ranks third as the most common cause of death in Hong Kong and is the leading cause of adult disability. Community care has been adopted as the major source of care for older people in Hong Kong and this has impacted on family caregivers.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and disability in the western world. Given the ageing population in Sweden, the number of people suffering from stroke is likely to increase in the future. Stroke alters the lives of both patients and their relatives. Few studies have explored first time affected relatives’ experiences of suddenly becoming a relative to a stroke victim, before the relatives decide whether or not to become informal carers.

Introduction: Research acknowledges the relevance of social support and coping strategies to manage the pressure of care experienced by informal carers, where ICT-based services like telecare and telehealth can provide more effective and efficient support to individuals compared with traditional interventions. Nevertheless there is still little evidence of their benefits of these technological services for informal carers and on the factors associated with their successful development and transfer.

Background and aims: A body of literature indicates that the informal carers (e.g. family, friends) of people with social and health care needs experience poorer quality of life, health and psychological wellbeing than their non-carer counterparts (e.g. Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003). It has been suggested that telecare interventions to enable a person with social care needs to remain at home may also positively impact on informal carer wellbeing (Yeandle, 2009), however, little is known about their effect in this domain.

Context: Family carers of palliative care patients report high levels of psychological distress throughout the caregiving phase and during bereavement. Palliative care providers are required to provide psychosocial support to family carers; however, determining which carers are more likely to develop prolonged grief (PG) is currently unclear.

Objectives: To ascertain whether family carers reporting high levels of PG symptoms and those who develop PG disorder (PGD) by six and 13 months postdeath can be predicted from predeath information.

Aims.  To describe informal carers’ coping strategies and their experiences of the support provided by respite care.

Background.  The target set in the Finnish national old age policy strategy is that 90% of the population over 75 should be able to live at home. A major source of support for older people and their families is respite care in an institution.

The use of respite services by carers has been shown to extend the length of time people with dementia can remain living in the community with family support. However, the use of respite services by informal carers of people with dementia is often low and does not appear to match carer need. To better understand how to address carers' unmet need for respite, the factors that impede respite service use must be identified.

Purpose. Little is known about how spouses cope with their needs as a result of their partner's aphasia. This study described spouses' needs and identified the barriers and facilitators to satisfying them.