PURPOSE Transitions in caregiving, such as becoming a primary caregiver to grandchildren or having adult children and grandchildren move in or out, may affect the well-being of the grandmother. DESIGN AND METHODS This report describes caregiving patterns at 3 time points over 24 months in a sample of 485 Ohio grandmothers and examines the effects of stability and change in grandmother caregiv...

OBJECTIVES The Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) is a 13-item index originally developed in the early 1980s to screen for caregiver strain after hospital discharge of an elderly family member. This study examined the reliability of a modified CSI for applications with contemporary long-term family caregivers. METHODS As part of a larger family caregiver study using focus groups, telephone intervie...

BACKGROUND We see a growing number of older adults receiving long-term care in industrialized countries. The Healthcare Utilization Model by Andersen suggests that individual need characteristics influence utilization. The purpose of this study is to analyze correlations between need characteristics and service utilization in home care arrangements. METHODS 1,152 respondents answered the ques...

OBJECTIVE Behavioral and psychological symptoms are common in dementia, and they are especially stressful for family caregivers. Nonpharmacological (or psychosocial) interventions have been shown to be effective in managing behavioral and psychological symptoms, but mainly in institutional settings. The authors reviewed the effectiveness of community-based nonpharmacological interventions deliv...

BACKGROUND Whole person care is appropriate for seriously ill persons. The current framework of palliative care domains in the National Consensus Project (NCP) Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care offers an opportunity to reassess the domains of care delivered at home, earlier in the course of illness. OBJECTIVE This qualitative study was used to test the applicability of a proposed, expand...