Ageing

Providing care for an ageing parent can be one of the most fulfilling life experiences for an adult child. It can also be one of the most exhausting physically, emotionally and financially. A carer experiences psychological and emotional changes when their dependent parent or spouse is placed into formal care. This research project uses the Montgomery Borgatta Caregiver Burden Scale, amended with a questionnaire, in a self-administered, anonymous survey to explore perceptions of caregiving burden before and after the nursing home placement periods.

Population forecasters have predicted that the proportion of people in the UK aged 65 years and older will rise significantly in coming decades. This shift in demographics will put increasing pressure on the National Health Service and providers of social care. However, older people do not rely only on care provided by the state; informal care of the elderly is often supplied by family and friends. Therefore, the relationship between formal and informal care and the reaction of informal carers to institutional changes is an important policy issue.

Research and theory on ‘dependency’ and ‘care-giving’ have to date proceeded along largely separate lines, with little sense that they are exploring and explaining different aspects of the same phenomenon. Research on ‘care’, initially linked to feminism during the early 1980s, has revealed and exposed to public gaze what was hitherto assumed to be a ‘natural’ female activity. Conversely, disability activists and writers who have promoted a social model of disability have seen the language of and the policy focus upon ‘care’ as oppressive and objectifying.

Little research has examined the extent to which active ageing is facilitated by family and nonfamilial support persons of older adults with intellectual disabilities. This study explores the role played by key unpaid carers/support persons of older adults with lifelong intellectual disabilities in facilitating “active ageing.” All key social network members conceived active ageing to mean ongoing activity.

As the population continues to age, more of us are becoming carers, and many just juggle responsibilities between working and caring. Innovative policy reform is fundamental if we are to meet future demand for care, explains Dalia Ben-Galim. 

There are 850,000 people living with dementia in the United Kingdom today, and there is currently no diseasemodifying intervention available for any form of the condition. Costs from dementia to the UK economy are currently estimated to be over L24 billion a year and approximately 700,000 people are informal carers for people who have dementia. While age is the biggest risk factor for developing dementia, the condition is not an inevitable part of ageing. Other factors such as medical history, lifestyle and genetics may also contribute to the risk of developing dementia.

This paper provides an overview of the GOLD programme at the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities. It describes the work of the 13 funded projects in a context of wider research concerning ageing and learning disabilities. Particular attention is given to those people living with older family carers and those living in residential services for older people. The picture is of services that offer little confidence for the future, as people with learning disabilities grow older.

Background: Growing numbers of people with learning disabilities are now living into older age. This study aims to examine the state of knowledge about their lives and the challenges that ageing has for both family carers and policymakers and practitioners.

Materials and Methods: The article synthesises existing research in the fields of learning disability, ageing and family and social care with a view to learning lessons from these separate fields, identifying possibilities for collaboration and identifying gaps in knowledge.

BACKGROUND: The negative health impacts of prolonged caregiving are widely reported. However, there is a paucity of evidence concerning the impacts of a lifetime of caring on older parents of offspring with learning disabilities.

DESIGN AND METHODS: An exploratory postal survey including the Medical Outcome Study (Short Form) 36 version 2 (SF-36v2) was completed by 100 older parent carers. The reported survey is part of a larger mixed method study including in-depth interviews.