Dementia

The focus of this paper is the experiences and needs of family carers of people with end-stage dementia. The project involved in-depth, qualitative interviews with 15 carers. The major themes emerging from the accounts of participants' experiences were: getting support; having to trust others with care; managing the loneliness of being a carer; witnessing a loved one fade away; anticipating and experiencing death; and re-establishing life after the funeral. Carers expressed a range of instrumental and psychosocial needs.

Objectives: The aim of the REMiniscence groups for people with dementia and their family CAREgivers (REMCARE) study was to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of joint reminiscence groups for people with dementia and their family caregivers as compared with usual care.

One year after people who lack mental capacity were given the right to use direct payments, Mithran Samuel finds take-up is disappointing. [Introduction]

Specialist mental health services for older people have grown rapidly and successfully over the past two decades, aiming to offer services that are comprehensive, accessible, responsive, individualised, multidisciplinary, accountable, and systematic. As with all mental health problems, the burden falls on primary care (where minor morbidity often goes undetected) and specialist services tend to be reserved for those conditions and patients where diagnosis and management is problematic.

This article describes how Thurrock Council Social Services Department and South Essex Mental Health and Community Care NHS Trust launched a joint initiative to develop an integrated service strategy and implementation plan for older people's mental health services in Thurrock. The main principles of the approach were: service user and carer involvement, the active participation of mental health professionals working directly with service users and carers, representatives from all key agencies involved in the planning process.

The Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 came into force on 1 April 1996. It entitles carers who are providing substantial amounts of care on a regular basis to an assessment of their needs and ability to care. Local authorities are required to take the results of this assessment into account when making decisions about services. This paper reports the key findings of a two-year study, conducted in Wales, that evaluated the process and outcomes of assessments carried out under the auspices of the Carers Act.

Reports on the evaluation of Dementia Care Trust's counselling service for carers, which now also offers counselling for people with dementia too.

This paper looks at the ambiguous journey travelled by family, mainly spouse, carers in Scotland is based on 37 interviews which formed part of a larger study exploring the subjective experience of 20 individuals with dementia. The majority of the interviews were conducted with the carer alone, others with the relative with dementia (RWD) present and some as joint interviews.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of dementia is increasing among non-western immigrants. It is known that family care is provided relatively often among immigrant groups. Until now, however, relatively little was known about how relatives of people with dementia in the immigrant communities perceive family care. This study therefore focuses on describing the perspectives of female Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese Creole family carers in the Netherlands about providing family care to a close relative with dementia.