older people

The 24th chapter of 35 in this book on ageing and disability from research and clinical perspectives viewpoints appears in the sixth part (of 12) on loss and end of life issues. It reviews the role of the carer in chronic disease and end of life care, and how positive or otherwise caring, particularly long term, may be. Following an introduction there are five main sections.

This briefing paper describes the views, experiences, motivations and plans of six older carers who decided to stay involved in research following their participation in a one year project at the University of Nottingham funded by Macmillan Cancer Support.

The economic and social burden of dementia on society is the value of all the resources used to prevent, diagnose, treat, and generally cope with the illness. This article assess the overall resource implications of dementia in Ireland. Six main areas are covered in the cost analysis as follows: mortality and life years lost, in-patient acute care, in-patient psychiatric care, residential long-stay care, family care, and primary and social care in the community.

This paper analyses data from a 3-year prospective study to understand the factors associated with becoming a caregiver to a person with a chronic illness and examines the dynamics among caregivers over time. A total of 1485 participants were drawn from a study conducted in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Two waves of data collected in 2006 for the baseline and a follow-up in 2009 were used. Information on the demographic, self-reported health and socioeconomic characteristics such as education, sources of livelihood and employment status was used.

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.

This paper investigates the prevalence of incapacity in performing daily activities and the associations between household composition and availability of family members and receipt of care among older adults with functioning problems in Spain, England and the United States of America (USA).

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

Data on both the provision and receipt of informal care among populations of older adults are limited. Patterns of both informal care provided and received by older adults in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) and Northern Ireland (NI) were evaluated. A cross-sectional community-based population survey was conducted. Randomly selected older people (aged 65+, n = 2033, mean age (standard deviation): 74.1 years (6.8), 43% men, 68% response rate) provided information on the provision and receipt of care, its location, and the person(s) who provided the care.

This study compares the results of two surveys of informal caregivers conducted in California and Hawaii (N = 1677) to determine if there is a uniquely Asian model of caregiving. Differences between Asian and non-Asian caregivers were found in the percentage of male caregivers, the impact of caregiving personally and on the family, and on employment. Furthermore, in multivariate analysis, being of Asian origin retained significance in predicting both positive and negative caregiver outcomes.