Stress

Objectives: To understand how carers of dementia sufferers gain access to community support and to determine potential barriers for carers.

Design: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews of carers after an Aged Care Assessment Team intervention.

Setting: Australian metropolitan Aged Care Assessment Team.

Subjects: 24 live-in carers of dementia sufferers.

This article presents findings from a research study that examined, by observation and interview, the nature of care as a form of social organization in the homes of people with dementia whose care was at least partly provided by relatives or friends. Twenty situations were included in which the carers and people with dementia were interviewed. Each participating pair was observed for an average of nine hours. Change was perceived, on the whole, in negative terms for both caregiver and the person with dementia.

Objectives: Treatment of challenging behaviour in dementia using standardized psychopharmacological or psychosocial approaches remains problematical. A case-specific approach was trialled in this study, based on extensive evidence that each case is different in aetiology, the effects of the behaviour on others and what interventions are possible given the available resources.

Objectives: Caregiver burden is a key measure in caregiver research and is frequently used as a baseline measure in intervention studies. Previous research has found numerous factors associated with caregiver burden such as the relationship quality between carer and patient, the patient's cognitive ability, behavioural and psychological symptoms displayed by the patient, caregiver gender, adverse life events to name a few. Many studies have investigated these factors singularly however current thought suggests a multi-factorial role and inter-dependence of these factors.

OBJECTIVE: To identify which caregivers of stroke patients living at home experience the highest levels of strain and are at risk of burn-out, and to investigate how support for caregivers of stroke patients could best be organized, and when this support should be offered.

Objectives: This study investigates the psychological and physiological impact of caring for a partner with fronto-temporal dementia (FTD). Carers were expected to exhibit greater stress and poorer psychological well-being in comparison with non-carers, and suppressed mucosal immunity.

This study examines whether caregivers' differential utilization of respite and counseling support services is associated with different situational stress processes. A multinomial regression analysis was conducted to compare respite users, counseling users, and those who used neither service, using data collected on a statewide random sample of 1,643 California caregivers providing assistance to individuals aged 50 or older.

In rural sub-Saharan Africa, most care for patients with AIDS is provided at home by relatives. Caring for those with AIDS is assumed to be a substantial burden, but little is known from the perspectives of those who provide the care. In this paper we use interviews with caregivers, supplemented with survey data from a larger study in rural Malawi, to investigate this issue.