Month: June 2017

Caring for people with dementia at home requires a significant amount of time, organization, and commitment. Therefore, informal caregivers, mainly relatives, of people with dementia often feel a high burden. Although on-site support groups are known to have positive effects on the subjective well-being (SWB) and perceived social support of informal caregivers, there are cases in which relatives have either no time or no opportunity to leave the person alone or in which there are no support groups nearby. The TALKING TIME project aims to close this supply gap by providing structured telephone-based support groups in Germany for the first time. International studies have shown benefits for informal caregivers.
The results of this study will provide further information on the effectiveness and optimization of telephone-based support groups for informal caregivers of people with dementia, which can help guide the further development of effective telephone-based social support group interventions.

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This app is for carers of people with dementia. Developed by Health Education England’s Thames Valley team in partnership with the University of Reading and in collaboration with healthcare professionals and carers, it offers practical information to support users’ understanding of the progressive nature of dementia and the challenges of caring for someone with the condition.

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Women provide nearly two-thirds of all elder care, with wives more likely to care for husbands than vice versa and daughters 28% more likely to care for a parent than sons. Making up 47% of the workforce in 2015, burgeoning caregiving demands will disproportionately fall on working-age women, as will the associated decreases in self-esteem.
For women who remain in the workforce, dementia care responsibilities can increase costs to their employers from absenteeism, productivity loss, stress-related disability claims. It remains to be seen whether men can be persuaded to assume an equal share of the burden of caregiving. While gender parity in childcare is modestly growing, gender parity in dementia care is unlikely to occur anytime soon.5 Hard-fought gains toward equality in the workplace for women are at risk.

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Gratitude is widely perceived as a key factor to psychological well-being by different cultures and religions. The relationship between gratitude and coping in the context of familial dementia caregiving has yet to be investigated.
The present results indicate the beneficial role of gratitude on coping with caregiving distress and provide empirical foundation for incorporating gratitude in future psychological interventions for caregivers.

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This study aims to review the methodologies used to identify the needs, the existing needs assessment instruments and the main topics of needs explored among caregivers of patients with mild cognitive impairment to dementia.
No instrument has been developed and validated to assess the needs of informal caregivers of patients with cognitive impairment, whatever the stage and the etiology of the disease. As the perceived needs of caregivers may evolve with the progression of the disease and the dementia transition, their needs should be regularly assessed.

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This study aimed to explore the psychological status and quality of life among primary caregivers of individuals suffering from various mental illnesses including early psychosis, chronic schizophrenia, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and dementia.
Psychological status of caregivers in the current study was associated with the various domains of quality of life (QOL). In particular, caregivers’ symptoms of depression were significantly associated with lower QOL across all four domains of QOL whereas symptoms of anxiety were associated with lower scores in the social relationships domain. The study suggests a need to provide caregivers with social support and psycho-education to improve the QOL as well as aid in developing healthy coping strategies.

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Stress biomarkers have been linked to health and well-being. There are, however, few studies on how dysregulation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic nervous system actually affects functional health of family caregivers of persons with dementia. Further, it is not clear whether and how factors affecting caregiving stressor exposures such as care transitions and adult day services (ADS) use may affect such association.
The study contributes to an important but largely unanswered question regarding implications of stress biomarkers on functional health. Assessments of the association between stress biomarkers and health among family caregivers of persons with dementia need to consider changes in stressor exposures over time, such as care transitions and ADS use.

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