OBJECTIVES This study identified different types of caregivers who provide care to older African Americans, the types of caregiving structures created to provide care, and the factors that help predict caregiving structures. METHODS A community sample of 330 caregivers caring for 202 elderly African Americans was used. Multinomial logistic regression predicted what type of caregiving structur...

Most deaths are preceded by chronic illness and disability and the provision of support by family caregivers. The purpose of this article is to describe how the caregiving experience affects bereavement, with an emphasis on the relationship between challenging caregiving situations and difficult grieving processes - often referred to as `complicated grief'. The article starts with a brief summa...

INTRODUCTION The debate on reconciliation between childcare and working has to be expanded to caregiving for the elderly, since the importance of informal caregiving will increase in the future due to populations' ageing and women's increasing labour force participation. Informal caregivers who are caring for the rising number of persons with dementia (PwD) are often female and subjected to hig...

OBJECTIVES Using a large, national sample, this study examined perceived caregiving strain and other caregiving factors in relation to all-cause mortality. METHOD The REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study is a population-based cohort of men and women aged 45 years and older. Approximately 12% (n = 3,710) reported that they were providing ongoing care to a fam...

OBJECTIVE Individuals who assume caregiving duties for a family member disabled in a traumatic injury often exhibit considerable distress, yet few studies have examined characteristics of those who may be resilient in the initial year of caregiving. Reasoning from the influential Pearlin model of caregiving (Pearlin & Aneshensel, 1994) and the resilience process model (Bonanno, 2005), we expect...

Links between chronic illness and family relationships have led to psychosocial interventions targeted at the patient's closest family member or both patient and family member. The authors conducted a meta-analytic review of randomized studies comparing these interventions with usual medical care (k=70), focusing on patient outcomes (depression, anxiety, relationship satisfaction, disability, a...

A caregiver, defined as “a person who provides direct care (to children, elderly people or the chronically ill),” can be either formal (a trained health care worker) or informal (family or friend). In any given year, an estimated 29% of the United States population, or 65 million people, are caregivers. In Rhode Island, approximately 110,000 people were caregivers in 2004, 10% of the state’s po...

Most caregiving and companionship provided by family members and friends to older individuals in home environments occurs because of the caregiver's feelings of ethical and emotional obligation and attachment. From a legal perspective, though, it might be ill-advised for an informal caregiver to admit such a motivation. Building on a recently published study of relevant litigation, this essay d...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Very little is known about family caregivers who are also geriatrics health care professionals. This exploratory study examines the dual roles of such professionals, the impact of their geriatrics expertise on the care of family members, and the influence of those caregiver experiences on their clinical practice. DESIGN AND METHODS The research team recruited 16 geriatric...