Community care

Background: While dementia policy strategies emphasize the importance of partnerships between families and formal carers to provide tailored care and effectively allocate community resources, family carers often feel left out or excluded. Poor communication has been identified as one reason for the lack of good partnerships. Few studies have investigated how family carers seek to involve themselves when they experience sub-optimal services, and how their strategies may depend on different considerations and personal abilities.

Background Family members often need to be supported in informal care of the elderly and desire to be involved into care planning and decision‐making.

This article describes our recommendation for adapting hospital-based RED (Reengineered Discharge) processes to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Using focus groups, the SNFs’ discharge processes were assessed twice additionally, research staff then recorded field notes documenting discussions about facility discharge processes as they related to RED processes.

Objectives: Home dwelling people with dementia and their informal carers often do not receive the formal care services they need. This study examined and mapped the research regarding interventions to improve access and use of formal community care services. Method: This is a scoping review with searches in PubMed, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Social Science Citation index and searches of grey literature in international and national databases.

Family carers play a central role in community-based palliative care. However, caring for a terminally ill person puts the carer at increased risk of physical and mental morbidity. The Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool (CSNAT) enables comprehensive assessment of carer support needs. The present study aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to implementing the CSNAT in a community specialist palliative care service. Semi-structured interviews with 12 palliative care nurse specialists from two community nursing teams in Lothian, Scotland, June 2017.

Background: The literature describes the obstacles to sufficient care faced by people with dementia and their informal caregivers. Although factors influencing access and utilisation are frequently studied, the body of knowledge lacks an overview of aspects related to influence. The frequently used Behavioural Model of Health Care Use (BM) could be used to structure and explain these aspects. An adaptation of the BM emphasises psychosocial influences and appears to enrich the understanding of the use of long-term care for dementia.

Help with activities of daily living for people in the community is provided through formal services (public and private) and informal (often unpaid) care. This paper investigates how these systems interlock and who is at risk of unmet need. It begins by mapping differences between OECD countries in the balance between formal and informal care, before giving a detailed breakdown for the UK. New analysis of UK Family Resources Survey data for 2012/13 and 2013/14 suggests high levels of unmet need.

Aim To evaluate the effect of a targeted community‐based psychosocial intervention on self‐efficacy outcomes for care recipient/carer dyads living with early‐stage dementia. Background There is increasing interest in the role of self‐efficacy and self‐management structures in determining positive outcomes for people with dementia. The assumption is that care recipient/carer dyads who receive early support to identify and adjust to dementia‐related changes will cope better in the long term.

Australia has one of the world’s highest life expectancy rates, and there is a rapidly growing need for informal caregivers to support individuals who are ageing, have chronic illness or a lifelong disability. These informal carers themselves face numerous physical and psychological stressors in attempting to balance the provision of care with their personal life, their work commitments and family responsibilities. However, little is known about the specific challenges facing rural carers and the barriers that limit their capacity to provide ongoing support.