Irving, Kate

Purpose: Informal care constitutes an important part of the total care for people with dementia. Therefore, the impact of the syndrome on their caregivers as well as that of health and social care services for people with dementia should be considered.

Objectives: Home dwelling people with dementia and their informal carers often do not receive the formal care services they need. This study examined and mapped the research regarding interventions to improve access and use of formal community care services. Method: This is a scoping review with searches in PubMed, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Social Science Citation index and searches of grey literature in international and national databases.

Objectives: Previously developed dementia caregiver profiles defined by caregiver age and burden, have been associated with caregiver quality of life, depression and perseverance time. The current aim was to investigate whether these caregiver profiles could predict subsequent service use. In addition, non-personal (e.g. meals on wheels) and supportive services (e.g. Alzheimer café) in early dementia were investigated as predictors.

Purpose: The pressure on healthcare budgets remains high, partially due to the ageing population. Economic evaluation can be a helpful tool to inform resource allocation in publicly financed systems. Such evaluations frequently use health-related outcome measures. However, in areas such as care of older people, improving health outcomes is not necessarily the main focus of care interventions and broader outcome measures, including outcomes for those providing informal care, may be preferred when evaluating such interventions.

Background and Objectives People with dementia and carers do not always access respite services in a timely manner, or in some cases, at all. Although carers' perspectives on respite access have been explored, other stakeholder perspectives, especially providers and people with dementia, are underrepresented in the existing literature. The aim of this study was to synthesize multiple stakeholders' perspectives, including people with dementia, on accessing respite services in the context of dementia.

Background People with dementia and carers do not always access respite services in a timely manner, and in some cases, they do not access respite services at all. While carers' perspectives on respite access have been explored, other stakeholder perspectives, especially those of people with dementia, are under-represented in the existing literature. The aim of this study was to synthesise multiple stakeholders' perspectives, including people with dementia, on accessing respite services. Methods Purposive sampling was employed.

Background: Respite services provide a break in the caregiving relationship for people with dementia and their carers, however they are often under-used and service acceptability can be low. This study aims to understand key stakeholders' experiences of respite services for people with dementia, with a view to informing respite service development.

Background People with dementia and informal carers often access formal care late in the process of dementia. The barriers and facilitators to service use from the perspectives of different stakeholders involved are not well understood. Thus, we aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators of access to and utilisation of formal care from the perspectives of people with dementia, their informal carers and health and social care professionals.

Background: With 10.5 million people with dementia in Europe and $301 billion associated costs, governments face challenges organizing access to care.; Objective: To examine the costs related to formal and informal care use and quality of life for people with dementia in eight European countries, and explore the association with unmet needs.; Methods: Cross-sectional data from 451 persons with dementia and their informal caregivers of the Actifcare cohort study were obtained.