carers

Needs assessments are widely used in the field of aging, and are considered valuable tools for planning service responses to unmet and undermet needs of older adults. This article describes a comprehensive needs assessment of Bermuda's older population and presents some of its findings to illustrate concerns about needs assessments that emerged from this experience. We suggest that even when needs assessments are carefully planned and adhere to generally recognized best practice principles, they may not be able to fully provide desired information.

Research that has tracked living situation changes is lacking for people with Down syndrome post-diagnosis of dementia. Extant studies have not considered reasons for a move, the stage at which it happened, and how involved in the decision the person with Down syndrome was. To study this, a postal questionnaire was used with 35 carers of persons with Down syndrome in Scotland who had been diagnosed with dementia during the previous five years.

Sexuality and people with learning disabilities is a controversial subject. Research suggests that, although paid carers are starting to acknowledge the importance of relationships, attitudes may be more conservative among family carers and the general public. This quantitative study looked at the attitudes of each of these groups. The researchers also considered whether knowing someone with a learning disability has an impact on the views of the general public and if there were difference in attitudes towards homosexuality among the three groups.

Carers have greater risk of ill health and unemployment according to the latest comprehensive research for Carers UK. Sue Yeandle outlines what reforms are needed. [Introduction]

Background and Purpose— Early supported discharge (ESD) for stroke has been shown to yield outcomes similar to or better than those of conventional care, but there is less information on the impact on costs and on the caregiver. The purpose of this study is to estimate the costs associated with an ESD program compared with those of usual care.

Methods— We conducted a randomized controlled trial of stroke patients who required rehabilitation services and who had a caregiver at home.

Paul Batson, Kirsty Thorne and Jennifer Peak discuss a project to evaluate life story work, and how it helped care professionals and famaily carers as well as people with dementia

Stroke patients, and their carers can have many questions about the mental and physical effects of the condition, hospital procedures and treatments, and prospects for the future. This paper discusses issues involved in giving information to patients-some of whom may be experiencing serious communication problems - as well as those looking after them, and offers solutions. 

This study explored the experiences of informal carers who were aged 65 years and over. It has been estimated that 15 per cent of those aged 65 or over provide some form of informal care in England. Despite a growing literature on the involvement of older people in research, there is a paucity of literature on the involvement of older carers. In this study, older carers were identified via a General Practice (GP) register in one urban medical practice. Data was collected through a series of focus groups, which were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of parental care-giving with reference to having an adult son or daughter with severe mental illness living in a care setting. The parents were asked to narrate their relationship to offspring in the past, in the present, and their thoughts and feelings concerning the future. The study was guided by a phenomenological hermeneutic perspective.