carers

Research has demonstrated the benefits of telecare. It helps those with long-term needs live more independent lives, improves well-being, and enhances the quality of life. Yet little attention has been focused on the impact of telecare on unpaid carers who look after relatives with long-term care needs. This article examines the evidence from “A Weight Off My Mind: exploring the impact and potential benefits of telecare for unpaid carers”, and the ways in which telecare has impacted on carers, and how it has improved their quality of life.

BACKGROUND: Although carers' reactions to schizophrenic illness in a close family member may have important implications for the patient and for themselves, little is known of factors that influence the way carers respond. In the area of physical health problems, people's models of their illness or illness representations have been found to be related to the ways they react and cope with their illness. This study examines the use of a modified form of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ) to investigate illness models in a sample of carers of schizophrenia patients.

This article investigates care provided to parents and parents-in-law by mid-life adults with dependent children at home. Data from the General Household Survey are used first to estimate the prevalence of this 'two-way' care over the past decade, and second to develop forecasts of two-way care for a generation of women who have just finished their childbearing years. Having a higher education qualification is associated with later ages both of caring for parents and of having children at home.

This article presents an adaptation of the Family Management Style Framework (FMSF)—a well-established framework of family response to chronic condition care of children—to families caring for older adults with dementia. Using the FMSF to better understand how families manage dementia care can provide clinicians with insights on how to work effectively with families.

Rampant levels of AIDS and poverty have made many children in sub-Saharan Africa the primary caregivers of their ageing or ailing guardians. This paper reports on a social action fund initiative that brought caregiving children together to set-up and run income generating activities as a group with the aim of strengthening their coping capabilities.

Purpose – Through consultation with people living with dementia and carers, this paper aims to identify skills that patients and carers feel need to be developed in the workforce. This work is part of a project to develop competencies for the West Midlands dementia workforce.

Family carers are a major source of help and assistance to the persons they provide care for. They are also major contributors to the welfare system, balancing the national health care expenditure. Increasing attention, in research as well as government policy, is being paid to their role as informal caregivers. Support to family carers seems to be a new ‘buzzword’ in Swedish Government policy. However, supporting family carers may prove to be a more complex endeavour than one initially might be led to believe.

The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities has developed a training resource with a difference - family carers, who are also encouraged to deliver the training alongside professionals, developed the contents to train staff working in learning disability services.

Carers provide unpaid support to family or friends with physical or mental health problems. This support may be within the domain of activities of daily living, such as personal care, or providing additional emotional support. While research has explored the carer experience within the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, it has not focused specifically on carers of individuals with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Eight carers for those with a diagnosis of BPD were invited to take part in two focus groups.