Review

The author discusses the experience with four Telecare technologies deployed by the Perth-Kinross Council to enable vulnerable clients, especially those with cognitive disabilities and functional disabilities, to remain safely in their homes with the support of formal and informal carers. This chapter presents the challenges of moving Telecare services from government funded demonstrations to locally supported permanent programs. Special attention is paid to potential barriers relating to sustainable funding and insufficient evidence of effectiveness.

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 active role (participation) that patients with chronic conditions are able to achieve has increasingly been recognised as a measure for the effectiveness of prevention and rehabilitation strategies. An empowerment scale is an especially effective instrument for measuring social participation and was applied to stroke patients in neurological rehabilitation for the first time. 26 stroke survivors and 26 informal carers who participated in self-help groups in Lower Austria were surveyed. The mean age was 63.9 (±10.4) (stroke survivors) and 61.9 (±9.6) years (informal carers).

France’s personalized autonomy allowance (APA) was created in 2002 to address the problem of caring for dependents. The allowance is in the form of a payment of a portion of the expense of personal and homecare services (“copayment”). This allowance is universal and is available to anyone over the age of 60. Eligibility and the amount allocated to eligible persons depends on the level of dependency, and the amount of expense remaining to be paid is based on income.

Dementia may alter the experience of pain and the ability to communicate it; this will, in turn, result in poor pain detection and inadequate treatment. The aim of this literature review is to identify the observational pain scales that have clinical utility and feasibility for use with people living with dementia in the community by district nurses in their daily practice. It was found that a consensus could not be reached on which tool to use in clinical practice.

An increase in the ageing UK population is leading to new ways of looking at how we deliver health and social care services in the UK. The use of assisted living technology (ALT) and telecare is already playing a part in these new models of care. Yet despite the current advances in the range of technology and networking capabilities in the home, ALT and telecare solutions have not been taken up as eagerly as might have been anticipated.

This research aimed to identify predictors of satisfaction with life in family carers. Evidence from the literature and from the Third European Quality of Life Survey (years 2011–2012) led to the construction of a model which was tested through linear regression analysis. The results corroborate findings from previous studies identified in the literature, showing that married and employed carers with higher education, those with fewer difficulties making ends meet with their household income and those who are healthier have higher levels of satisfaction with life.

Care of dementia is extremely resource demanding and has a great impact on both the formal care systems and the situation for informal carers. Thus, the question of cost–effectiveness is crucial. This presentation is, to a great extent, based on the dementia project by the Swedish council on technology assessment in health care. After the database search and quality judgment of papers, 22 papers of drug treatment were finally included. A summary of the situation as regards cost–effectiveness on drugs for Alzheimer’s disease showed that no evidence could be stated on empirical studies.

Aileen Murray explores the implications for three groups affected by the condition and how greater awareness of these results in improved experiences for individuals