carers

This Viewpoint, written by Caroline Glendinning at the University of York and David Bell at the University of Stirling, draws on the experiences of other countries to argue that social care is a collective, welfare state responsibility rather than an individual, private responsibility.

Other key points include: 

• social care arrangements in many other countries are equal and universal: everyone is eligible regardless of wealth, and people with similar levels of disability receive care no matter where they live;

The aim of this paper is to describe working with the carers (families) of adults with anorexia nervosa (AN), which is different from working with families of younger adolescents. The main difference is in the area of rights and responsibilities of both parties. Moreover, as AN in adults is often a chronic condition, the treatment goal may not focus on recovery, but instead on improvement in quality of life. Thus the spectrum of nature and degree of parental involvement in the treatment of adults with AN is much broader than in children and adolescents.

Purpose – The National Institute of Health Research MHRN established the Feasibility and Support to Timely recruitment for Research (FAST-R) service in 2011, to provide rapid patient and carer feedback on research documents, prior to ethical review. The aims were to improve the feasibility of studies, to speed up regulatory processes and enhance study set up and completion. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the FAST-R service benefits the review process.

Hilary Arksey and Claire Bamford report on the first stage of a two-year national study of respite care and short breaks for people with dementia and their carers

This article describes the range of medication-related activities that are undertaken by carers together with some examples of the types of problems that they experience. This background may assist pharmacists in developing services to support carers in their medicines management roles and thus contribute to government policy as outlined in its strategy for carers. 

Abstract: Have you heard of cognitive stimulation therapy? The London School of Economics (LSE) has carried out research that shows it to be more cost effective than usual care when looking at the cognitive and quality of life benefits for a dementia sufferer. There is also evidence to suggest that it might be more cost effective than dementia medication, say proponents of this relatively unknown therapy. Joanne Knowles is one such advocate who believes in this therapy so much that she voluntarily campaigns to spread its message.

BACKGROUND: Along with classical motor disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD), psychopathological features frequently co-occur, which may increase the caregiver's burden.

AIMS: To identify the profile of psychopathological symptoms in patients with PD and the impact imposed by this condition on the caregiver's burden.

SUBJECTS: Fifty patients with idiopathic PD seen consecutively at the Movement Disorder Outpatient Clinic at the Hospital of State University of Campinas, Brazil, and their 50 respective caregivers were studied.

The need for accurate information about the mental health problems of multicultural communities requires valid measures of mental health for use in a number of languages and cultural contexts. Measures of psychopathological symptoms leading to a diagnosis have been especially criticised for their universal application, without attention to their limitations across cultures. Yet, measures are crucial to assess recovery and the performance of services, and to take account of carer and user views.