United states of america

Background: A transition of care (TOC) process from pediatric to adult medicine ensures that adolescents receive ongoing care into young adulthood, a time of high risk for preventable morbidity and mortality. Methods: We explored patient, caregiver, and physician perspectives on ways to improve TOC communication with healthy adolescents. Two researchers conducted key informant interviews with healthy 12- to 18-year-old adolescents, their caregivers, and primary care physicians working in pediatric, internal, and family medicine.

Advance care planning in young-onset dementia largely remains a blind spot within current literature. This study aimed to explore the engagement in and the conceptualization of advance care planning from the perspective of family caregivers of persons with young-onset dementia and to identify potential similarities and differences in this area between American and Belgian persons with young-onset dementia and their family caregivers. An exploratory qualitative study.

Despite the fact that African American, Latino, and Asian Americans represent the fastest growing segments of the population in the United States over the age of 65, they remain understudied in intervention research. This article describes the process of developing and implementing a psycho-educational intervention for African American caregivers which was informed by a review of the care giving and intervention literature, and stress, appraisal, and coping theory. The intervention included 12 modules that lasted approximately 90 minutes each.

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.

Purpose: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Dyadic Relationship Scale (DRS), which measures negative and positive dyadic interactions from the perspective of both the patient and the family caregiver. An important aspect of evaluating the DRS was that it be statistically sound and meaningful for both members of the dyad. Design and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional design. Survey packages were mailed to home health care patients and their family caregivers.

Even for patients receiving complex, intensive medical care for serious and life-threatening illness, family caregiving is typically at the core of what sustains patients at the end of life. The amorphous relationship between physicians and the families of patients at the end of life presents both challenges and opportunities for which physicians may be unprepared. Families play important roles in the practical and emotional aspects of patient care and in decision making at the end of life. At the same time, family members may carry significant burdens as a result of their work.

Aim.  This paper is a report of a study of the perceptions of family caregivers regarding the availability and adequacy of health and social care services for their family member with Huntington disease, and to compare findings from these reports in United Kingdom and United States of America samples.

Background.  Huntington disease is an inherited neurodegenerative condition. Family members often take responsibility for care of relatives with long-term conditions. Studies have demonstrated there are both positive and negative outcomes for carers.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between spousal care-giving and declines in functioning and self-rated health among older care-givers. The authors used data from the 2000 and 2002 waves of the United States Health and Retirement Study, a biennial longitudinal survey of a nationally representative cohort of adults aged 50 or more years. Two outcomes were examined, declines in functioning and declines in self-rated health.