Aged

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a practical, easily implemented, educational intervention in group format for informal carers of persons with dementia. Methods: Multi-centre, randomised, controlled, single-blind trial involving 292 family caregivers of patients with moderate dementia in Alzheimer's disease. Results: Participants valued program components which had a practical impact on their caring role. The intervention achieved minor effects on the participants' psychological quality of life and did not reduce carer depression.

Background: Well coordinated and integrated home based care is an efficient and cost effective model for providing long term care. There is, however, emerging evidence to suggest that family members pay a price for taking on long term care responsibilities at home.; Objective: This article draws on published literature to provide an overview of the health, economic, and social issues faced by informal carers.

Objectives: To perform a psychometric evaluation of the Carers Assessment of Difficulties Index, Carers Assessment of Satisfactions Index and the Carers Assessment of Managing Index (CADI-CASI-CAMI).

Background: Job satisfaction and quality of life among home care workers who serve simultaneously as informal carers for their own family members have seldom been explored. This study examined how this dual role influences job satisfaction and quality of life by comparing these dual carers with home care workers who do not provide informal care. The study also explored whether the factors related to job satisfaction and quality of life between these two groups were different.

Objectives: To test the hypotheses that older people and their informal carers are not disadvantaged by home-based rehabilitation (HBR) relative to day hospital rehabilitation (DHR) and that HBR is less costly.

Design: Two-arm randomised controlled trial.

Setting: Four trusts in England providing both HBR and DHR.

Participants: Clinical staff reviewed consecutive referrals to identify subjects who were potentially suitable for randomisation according to the defined inclusion criteria.

Interventions: Patients were randomised to receive either HBR or DHR.

There has been little work on the ethical issues facing non-professionals who care for relatives or others with dementia. A qualitative pilot study was conducted in ten such individuals, eight of them women, caring for persons drawn mainly from one general practice. The interviews indicated that many of the dilemmas faced by carers are ethical and that the issues differ from those faced by professionals. Ethical issues are sometimes the most troublesome matter for carers. Unlike issues for professionals, they arise from a personal context and are shaped by long-term relationships.

Worldwide people with dementia are usually cared for at home by informal carers who may themselves have poor health and/or live in social situations which intensify their needs. The scale of these needs continues to be underappreciated and they are exacerbated by the limited social, cultural and emotional resources that carers can draw upon. This paper looks at the disparities in support, and the complex negotiations made by carers, as they reconcile the everyday realities of informal care in the home.

The use of physical restraints is still common practice in the care for the elderly in various settings in Europe, Asia and the USA. Physical restraints can be defined as any limitation in an individual’s freedom of movement by using measures or equipments such as belts, and chairs with a locked table. Prevalence estimates of restraint use range from 20% to more than 60% (including restrictive bedrails, belts, deep or overturned chairs, chairs with a table). In most cases physical restraints are used as safety measures, mainly for the prevention of falls.

Aim.  This paper presents findings from secondary analysis of longitudinal data on correlates of care relationship mutuality collected from 91 carers of people with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease in the control group of a randomized trial of home-care skill training.