older people

Objectives: Anxiety and depression are major health problems for carers of frail older people. Positive reactions to caregiving have been shown to protect people against anxiety and depression. The aims of this study are to explore specific aspects of self-esteem, termed positive caregiving reactions, and examine its relationship with caregiving anxiety and depressive symptoms.

The ‘sandwich generation’ has been conceptualised as those mid-life adults who simultaneously raise dependent children and care for frail elderly parents. Such a combination of dependants is in fact very unusual, and the more common situation is when adults in late mid-life or early old age have one or more surviving parents and adult but still partly dependent children.

Users, carers and the wider public are just as important to the real picture of long-term care provision and funding as local authority and NHS commissioners. So co-ordination is about more than agency structures.

Norwich: a ‘coffee morning’ initiative aimed to give people with dementia and carers the ordinary social opportunities they were missing. It has succeeded and also brought many further benefits, as Judith Farmer explains

Introduction: Interest in the integration of health and social care services has grown in recent years amongst all Governments in Europe in light of the increasing numbers of older people and those affected by chronic illnesses. This poster offers a review of the “Album of 10 Good Practices of integration at European level” carried out within the Advancing Integration for a Dignified Ageing (AIDA)- Project (www.projectaida.eu/). This was funded by EU Progress Program with the purpose of highlighting common aspects of effectiveness.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the joint effects of bereavement and caregiver intervention on caregiver depressive symptoms. 

Background: This study aimed to evaluate outcomes for carers receiving the Admiral Nurse Service, a specialist mental health nursing service for carers of people with dementia. In contrast to many community mental health teams, it works primarily with the caregiver, focuses exclusively on dementia and offers continuing involvement, throughout the caregiving career, including emotional support, provision of information and coordination of practical support.

Objectives: Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) can lead to significant improvements in cognitive function and quality of life for people with dementia. This study sought to investigate whether improvements found in clinical trials were also noted by people with dementia, their carers and group facilitators in everyday life.

Method: Qualitative interviews and focus groups were conducted with people attending CST groups, their carers and the group facilitators. Data were recorded and transcribed, before being analysed using Framework Analysis.

Cases of carers harming or killing those they care for are few. But such rare occurrences should not blind us to the frustrations and isolation that drive many carers to believe they can no longer cope, writes the author. [Journal abstract]