Conference paper

Introduction: The use of telehealth to provide behavioural services for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) is increasing. However, there are no prospective evaluations of stakeholder perspectives relating to this, which may have implications for uptake of such services. This study aimed to identify factors influencing family carer and professional willingness to use telehealth for behavioural support in the UK.

The number of informal caregivers for family members with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is rising dramatically in the United States. AD caregivers disproportionately experience numerous health problems and are often isolated with little support. An active lifestyle can help prevent and mitigate physical and psychological health concerns amongst AD caregivers. Research has demonstrated how pervasive exergames can encourage physical activity (PA) in the general population, yet little work has explored how these tools can address the significant PA barriers that AD caregivers face.

Introduction: E‐PAtS is a co‐produced and co‐facilitated group‐programme to support caregiver wellbeing and positive development for children with intellectual/developmental disabilities. E‐PAtS has previously been evaluated in traditional ways. This study, explored the process and benefits of training three caregivers as co‐researchers in the evaluation of E‐PAtS.  Methods: Three caregivers were invited to serve as co‐researchers and provided with training/supervision.

In the context of assisting informal caregivers of Alzheimer Disease patients, this article presents the design and preliminary implementation of a serious game in which two agents a user-controlled caregiver and a virtual patient communicate via specifically-designed dialog acts, reflecting both pedagogically appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. 

Social media has a role in the lives of many family carers. We present a case study of Facebook (FB) use in Care Alliance Ireland, a small Irish not-for-profit carer support organization. In 2012, in its role as coordinator of National Carers Week, Care Alliance Ireland set up a Facebook page to increase reach and awareness of the week amongst family caregivers who used Facebook. Philanthropic donations in the early years of FB use enabled the large-scale and relatively efficient recruitment of followers through targeted social media ads.

This study focuses on solutions to issues that arise from gaps in communication between primary family caregivers of older adults and respite caregivers. We collected data through 18 semi-structured interviews with primary family and respite caregivers and qualitatively analyzed the interviews to extract common needs. Participants identified three main needs that our designs address: building trust through status updates, learning routines & care management, and accessing technology.

The Global Carework Summit, organised by the Carework Network and hosted by the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center on Women and Work, brought together more than 150 attendees from 25 countries at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) in the USA during 1–3 June 2017. The Carework Network, formed almost 20 years ago by a small group of sociologists studying care, is an all-volunteer, international organisation of researchers, policymakers and advocates involved in various domains of care work.

Background Family carers provide substantial support for patients at end-of-life. It is important to understand how caregiving impacts on carers to guide appropriate interventions to improve carer wellbeing.  The aims of this study were to investigate levels of psychological distress and predictors of distress during end of life care giving in a national sample of family carers of people with cancer. Methods Four-month post-bereavement postal survey of a national census sample of relatives reporting a death from cancer 1–16th May 2015.

Previous research on healthcare technologies has shown how health tracking promotes desired behavior changes and effective health management. However, little is known about how the family caregivers' use of tracking technologies impacts the patient-caregiver relationship in the home. In this paper, we explore how health-tracking technologies could be designed to support family caregivers cope better with a depressed family member.

Introduction: Multimorbidity is often combined with functional limitations among older adults. It is therefore important to ensure the built and social environment encourages older adults to safely age while maintaining independence. Previous findings have focused on the impact of the built environment as a barrier to an active lifestyle, but not specific to accessing community-based health and social care (CHSC). We propose to investigate the impact of patient and caregiver limitations on accessing care, including the impact of the built environment.