Social workers

Objectives: • Describe 1-2 examples of experiences living and receiving care at home from the perspective of people with dementia and/or family caregivers • Describe 1-2 examples of unmet palliative care needs from the perspective of people with dementia and/or family caregivers receiving or providing care at home.  Importance: People with dementia (PWD) and their families represent a growing population who is increasingly accessing palliative care in the United States.

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the Family Caregiver Training Program (FCTP) for caregivers of people with dementia.METHOD. A random assignment control group research design with a 3-mo follow-up was implemented.RESULTS. Thirty-six family caregivers of people with dementia demonstrated an increase in activity of daily living (ADL) knowledge (p < .001) and maintenance of that knowledge 3 mo posttest. Caregiver confidence, regardless of group assignment, improved; however, it was not maintained.

While political and public interest in providing support for family carers is growing, so called young carers and young adult carers—young persons under the ages of 18 and 25 respectively—mostly remain unrecognised. Yet, this vulnerable group is in need of special attention and support from professionals in order to get along with the situation of an ill family member and the caring duties they perform.

Family interventions in chronic psychosis are well established through systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Such reviews report that family intervention might reduce relapse and improve compliance with medication and reduction in levels of expressed emotion (EE). However, most of the previous research has been conducted in caregivers with chronic schizophrenia, and the effects of family interventions in the early stages are largely unknown.

This film is from a project which examines social work from the perspective of service users and carers across three countries, Northern Ireland, Slovenia and Spain. Social work students from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the University of Alicante, Spain interviewed service users and carers on film using seven questions developed to examine key areas of social work skills, knowledge and values.

Adult learning approaches require professionals to identify their learning needs. Learning about dementia syndromes is a complex task because of the insidious onset and variable course of the disease processes, the inexorability of cognitive and functional loss, and the emotional impact of neurodegenerative disorders on those experiencing them and on their family and professional carers.

Person centred care means listening to people to find out what is most important to them and without making assumptions. Care is holistic, and centres on the whole person: who they are, their life before, and how they currently feel. The emphasis is on what the person can, rather than cannot do. This video shows health and social care professionals working directly with individuals and their carers. There are no actors, and no prepared scripts. The film shows what a difference a person centred approach makes to individuals with many/complex needs.

This film looks at the family support service for the families and carers of people who are at the end of their lives at Leicestershire and Rutland Hospice. Social workers work with other staff members to identify families who are in need of support.

This paper reports a welfare rights intervention for carers of dying people through seminars to help them organise family finances to deal with additional costs of the final illness, funeral costs and reconstruction of family finances after death. Seminars on financial affairs were provided to 103 carers and service users, and were evaluated by questionnaires. The seminars were very positively received by attenders, who felt better informed, but were not necessarily more confident in dealing with financial problems.

The role of telecare systems is normally seen as identifying, and drawing attention to, situations of concern in the homes of service users. While this may currently be the primary reason for deploying such systems, the scope of telecare should not be limited to such an alarm generation role. The role of telecare in enhancing community-based care provision may be broadened by using similar, or identical, technology for providing relevant information to the carers of service users.