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Family issues

Purpose in Life Among Family Care Partners Managing Dementia: Links to Caregiving Gains

Background and Objectives Purpose in life is associated with better health and has been found to minimize caregiving stress. Greater purpose may also promote caregiving gains (i.e. rewards or uplifts from providing care), yet the implications of purpose for positive aspects of the care role are largely unknown.

Mon, 02/03/2020 - 09:54

Predictors of Secondary Role Strains Among Spousal Caregivers of Older Adults With Functional Disability

Background and Objectives: Aging spouses commonly care for a partner with functional disability, but little is known about how spousal caregiving may impact different life domains. This study evaluated how caregiving characteristics are associated with secondary role strains among spousal caregivers. Research Design and Methods: This cross-sectional study examined 367 spousal caregivers and their partners from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study and National Study of Caregiving.

Fri, 09/20/2019 - 12:35

Care Values in Dementia: Patterns of Perception and Incongruence Among Family Care Dyads

Background and Objectives Persons with dementia (PWDs) often place greater importance on their care values (i.e. maintaining autonomy and social relations, choosing caregivers, avoiding being a burden) than family caregivers (CGs) perceive, which can detract from dementia care planning (e.g. care arrangements or surrogate decisions). Notable variability has been found across family care dyads (PWD and CG) in their perceptions of care values, suggesting that there may be multiple patterns of perception.

Wed, 09/11/2019 - 12:19

Adult Children's Serious Health Conditions and the Flow of Support Between the Generations

Purpose: The life course perspective suggests that serious physical or mental health conditions that limit the daily activities of any one family member are likely to be consequential for other family members as well. In this article, we explored whether adult children’s serious health conditions affected the flow of expressive and instrumental support between mothers and both the offspring with health conditions and other offspring in the family.

Mon, 03/11/2019 - 10:55

Interconnections Between My Research and Experience as a Caregiver: Impacts on Empirical and Personal Perspectives

Shortly after I received my first R01 grant to study the health effects of caregiving, my sister and I became caregivers to our father. For the next 13 years, we helped him with activities of daily living (ADLs), accompanied him to doctors’ appointments, arranged for home health care, and finally for home hospice. At first, I was able to connect our assistance with ADLs, frustration with coordinating his care, and our psychological stress with my epidemiologic studies.

Mon, 03/11/2019 - 09:53

The Burden and Benefits of Caregiving: A Latent Class Analysis

Background and Objectives: Informal caregiving to older adults is a key part of the U.S. long-term care system. Caregivers' experiences consist of burden and benefits, but traditional analytic approaches typically consider dimensions independently, or cannot account for burden and benefit levels and combinations that co-occur.

Thu, 02/07/2019 - 18:29