Jour

Paul Batson, Kirsty Thorne and Jennifer Peak discuss a project to evaluate life story work, and how it helped care professionals and famaily carers as well as people with dementia

Objectives: Caregivers of patients with dementia are at a greater risk of developing burden, strain and psychiatric morbidity in the form of depression. Psychotherapeutic interventions are essential in order to facilitate their role and improve their emotional state. This study presents a randomised controlled trial of a combined group intervention, including psychoeducational program and group psychotherapy intervention using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, aiming to evaluate its effectiveness in psychological health of caregivers in Greece.

Stroke patients, and their carers can have many questions about the mental and physical effects of the condition, hospital procedures and treatments, and prospects for the future. This paper discusses issues involved in giving information to patients-some of whom may be experiencing serious communication problems - as well as those looking after them, and offers solutions. 

This study explored the experiences of informal carers who were aged 65 years and over. It has been estimated that 15 per cent of those aged 65 or over provide some form of informal care in England. Despite a growing literature on the involvement of older people in research, there is a paucity of literature on the involvement of older carers. In this study, older carers were identified via a General Practice (GP) register in one urban medical practice. Data was collected through a series of focus groups, which were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

The degree of cooperation between home-healthcare agencies on the one hand and other providers and financing agencies on the other hand is characterized by a complex work process. The predominant analysis of insufficient cooperation is rather a description of its structural conditions, and says less about how work is actually performed. The presented study utilizes the Negotiated Order Approach by Strauss and colleagues to analyze how different perspectives are translated, how tasks are planned and how different commitments are made compatible.

The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of parental care-giving with reference to having an adult son or daughter with severe mental illness living in a care setting. The parents were asked to narrate their relationship to offspring in the past, in the present, and their thoughts and feelings concerning the future. The study was guided by a phenomenological hermeneutic perspective.

Increasing proportions of men and women are combining family (including care-giving) and work responsibilities in later life; however, the relationship between multiple role commitments and health at older ages remains unclear.

OBJECTIVES: Although the number of palliative home-care teams is increasing, knowledge of what patients and principal informal carers expect from a home-care team is sparse. We aimed to elucidate this as well as evaluate a home-care team.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Individual semi-structured interviews with nine patients and six carers before receiving home care and 2-4 weeks after. In total, 26 interviews were conducted. Interviews were analysed with Template Analysis. Peer debriefing was performed.

Background. Government health care policy urges service providers to involve service users in the decision-making process. Research studies have recommended changes to current health care practice to facilitate this involvement. However, carers’ organizations continue to highlight a gap between policy and practice in relation to involvement.

Emphasis on support for informal carers focuses on those who provide, in the words of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, 'substantial' and 'regular' care. Following research and policy, professional education has also developed interest in those who live with the people they support, such as co-resident spouses and children of all ages. This article considers those who probably do not define themselves as carers and are usually referred to as 'relatives' or 'family', living at a distance from an older relative.