Parents

Planning for the future for those adults with a learning disability who live with older carers is an important aspect of the White Paper Valuing People (DoH, 2001). Indeed, such planning is essential if crisis situations are to be avoided, particularly the double shock to service users of losing their home at a time when they are also bereaved. Most research about future planning has tended to focus on the perspective of the family carer rather than that of the service user.

The family is a space for learning that is in constant renewal and enrichment. However, when one of its members has a disability, the family plays a major role in the daily reconstruction of the intimate and social life of its members. And as ageing is inevitable, parents are constantly worried about who will take care of their children. Children become increasingly more dependent as parents face physical limitations in caring for their children.

A fifth of adults with learning difficulties live with elderly parent. This article looks at how well the social care sector is serving this population of carers.

In the United States and globally, increasing numbers of older parents are living with their adult children. Making the decision to live together requires careful thought and planning; particularly when the decision means the children will be responsible for their elder parents’ care, the physicians of all parties should be consulted. More than one-third of caregivers state that they seek advice from their physician or other clinician when information is needed about this transition.

More than three-fourths of older adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness live in the community with aging parents, the majority of whom do not complete plans for the residential, financial, and legal future of their offspring. The authors used a true experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of a six-week psychoeducational group intervention with 27 older mothers. Data collected in pre- and posttest telephone interviews were analyzed with repeated measures MANCOVA to test five hypotheses.

Adults with severe and enduring mental health problems are amongst the most marginalised and vulnerable people in our society. In providing care for these individuals, mental health professionals may potentially overlook the fact that many of these people are also parents: • There are an estimated 50,000 – 200,000 young people in the UK caring for a parent with mental health problems. • Many of these young people will provide help and support for a parent. • Some of these young people will be providing care beyond a level that is appropriate for their age. They will be ‘young carers’.

Examines the way in which a vital part of the system penalises carers, particularly parents whose children need supported independence. Looks at the often obstructive way housing benefit rules are interpreted, and at a recent legal decision which may make life easier for parents wanting to provide accommodation for their children.

Caregiving for family members is often described as a 36-hour day. Previous literature has suggested that family caregivers have little time to attend to their own health needs, such as participating in leisure-time physical activity. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we analyze whether time-allocation decisions reflect a conflict between time devoted to informal care and time devoted to self-health promotion through physical activity.

Written from an American perspective, this book tackles head on the powerful myths and discriminatory attitudes that underlie one of the unspoken moral disasters of contemporary life: that so many older people die, before their time, cut off from their family and their homes, unhappy and alone.

Literature on responsibility of adult children for aging parents reflects lack of conceptual clarity. The authors examined filial concepts across five cultural groups: African-, Asian-, Euro-, Latino-, and Native Americans. Data were randomly divided for scale development (n = 285) and cross-validation (n = 284). Exploratory factor analysis on 59 items identified three filial concepts: Responsibility, Respect, and Care.