Self-help groups

Background: Public involvement in research to improve data quality and to empower different stakeholders is good scientific practice, but rarely implemented across all research phases. Objective: This article reports on an attempt to involve members of a self‐help group for relatives of people living with dementia as co‐researchers in the data analysis in a short‐term format. Methods: One researcher identified statements about assistive technologies from 17 interviews with people living with dementia and informal caregivers.

Background: There is a lack of research on the effectiveness of online peer support groups for reducing social isolation and depressive symptoms among caregivers, and previous research has mixed results. Objective: This study aimed to test whether military caregivers who joined a new online peer support community or engaged with an existing online community experienced decreased perceived social isolation and improved depressive symptoms over 6 months.

Introduction: Since the incorporation of women into the world of work, together with the progressive ageing of the population and the increase of chronic diseases, there is an alteration in the role of the caregiver, due to the physical, work and family burden it bears, emotional conflicts and with other family members. Mutual aid can be an effective alternative to promoting the well-being of caregivers, as well as their families and dependents.

Background: Caring for people with dementia at home requires a significant amount of time, organization, and commitment. Therefore, informal caregivers, mainly relatives, of people with dementia often feel a high burden. Although on-site support groups are known to have positive effects on the subjective well-being (SWB) and perceived social support of informal caregivers, there are cases in which relatives have either no time or no opportunity to leave the person alone or in which there are no support groups nearby.

In rural Australia, knowledge and utilisation of support by informal carers is lacking. During the caregiving period, socioemotional support from family and friends plays an important role in sustaining caregiving activities. Post-care, these social networks facilitate adjustment to role change and dealing with grief. Developing and improving access to peer support to enable carers to effectively cope with the challenges of caring may positively influence their caring experience.

By providing care for loved ones in the home, family caregivers save millions of dollars for our overtaxed healthcare system. Support groups can lighten the psychological burden of caregiving. Nonprofessionally facilitated (or peer) online caregiver support groups can help meet a critical need in healthcare as a low-cost resource for caregivers. Online caregiver peer support groups can promote the health and well-being of family caregivers and, by extension, the patients themselves, resulting in cost-savings for society.

The National Black Carers and Carers Workers Network aims to ensure that the voices of carers from black and minority ethnic groups are heard. This article provides a brief overview of the work and main concerns of the Network.

Several recent articles have pointed out that caregivers of patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) need counselling and support. To date, however, no support groups have been provided other than those available to caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). At our outpatient unit for cognitive disorders we initiated a specific support group for caregivers of patients with FTD.

Background: The well-being of informal carers of people with dementia is an important public health issue. Caring for an elderly relative with dementia may be burdensome and stressful, and can negatively affect the carer’s social, family, and professional life. The combination of loss, the physical demands of caregiving, prolonged distress, and biological vulnerabilities of older carers may compromise their physical health, increase social isolation, and increase the risk of anxiety and depressive disorders.

Background: Informal caregiving is an integral part of the care of people with severe mental illness, but the support needs of those providing such care are not often met.

Aims: To determine whether interventions provided to people caring for those with severe mental illness improve the experience of caring and reduce caregiver burden.