Social worlds of Appalachian women caregivers of older relatives living with dementia.

Rationale: Over 11 million people in the United States provide care for an older family member with dementia, with this responsibility primarily falling on daughters and wives. In Appalachia, a mountainous region in the U.S characterized by close families, family members were crucial to ensuring that care needs were met for people living with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family Caregivers' Management of Behavioral Expressions of Dementia.

Background And Objectives: Behavioral expressions of dementia are often stressful for family caregivers to manage as they strive to ensure their relative's needs are met. Guided by Lazarus and Folkman's Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, we identified specific behaviors that disrupt daily routines and challenge the achievement of caregiving goals, and the approaches and strategies caregivers employ to address them.

Research Design And Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with 30 family caregivers in rural Appalachia caring for a relative living with dementia.

Vigilance, risk, and service use among caregivers of people living with dementia.

Objective: The purpose of this investigation was to understand the dynamics among dementia caregiving, vigilance, and home and community-based service use.

Methods: This paper is derived from a larger, mixed-methods study on caregiving. We used a descriptive qualitative approach to analyze interview data of 30 family caregivers of relatives with dementia.

COVID-19 Vaccination Experiences of Family Caregivers of Persons Living with Dementia in Rural Appalachia.

The study investigated COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, hesitancy, and barriers among family caregivers of rural community-dwelling persons living with dementia (PLwD). Three waves of telephone interviews with 26 family caregivers (96% White, 81% Female, = 63 ± 12 years) were analyzed using thematic content analysis. At Wave 3, although all dyads were eligible, only 10 dyads had received their first dose of the vaccine.

Dual Caregivers of Persons living with Dementia: The Added Stress of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Serving in dual caregiving roles presents challenges and has consequences for caregivers' physical and mental health. Forty-six dual caregivers in rural southwest Virginia participated in one semi-structured telephone interview pre-pandemic. Of these caregivers, nine dual caregivers of multiple older adults (MOA) and six caregivers of multiple generations (MG) participated in two telephone interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dementia Family Caregiving in Rural Appalachia: A Sociocultural Model of Care Decisions and Service Use.

Objectives: Examinations of cultural variations in caregiving experiences and practices tend to focus on racially and ethnically diverse family caregivers. We extended this research by exploring the role of place-based cultural constructs on care decisions of family caregivers for persons living with dementia in rural Appalachia whose experiences and backgrounds dwell outside the lines of dominant culture.

Methods: Guided by our sociocultural conceptual model of service use and a descriptive qualitative study design, we conducted in-depth interviews with 30 caregivers for persons living with dementia to understand how predisposing and enabling factors influence caregiving decisions, including the use of services to care for persons living with dementia.

Dementia Caregiving During the "Stay-at-Home" Phase of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess family caregivers' primary appraisal of stressors related to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, secondary appraisal of resources and support availability, and use of coping strategies as predictors of perceived role overload during the stay-at-home phase of the pandemic.

Method: Telephone interviews with 53 family caregivers of persons with dementia from rural Virginia 2 weeks after enactment of the governor's stay-at-home order using structured and open-ended questions were conducted.

Results: Caregivers who were more concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic were at greater odds of experiencing high role overload than those who recognized positive aspects of the pandemic, as were those who received insufficient support from family and friends.

A Long and Winding Road: Dementia Caregiving With Grit and Grace.

Background And Objectives: Many dementia caregivers provide care for numerous years. Exhibiting grit, or commitment and persistence in the face of adversity, may bolster their ability to manage caregiving challenges. We explored grit in relationship to memory and behavior problems and response to stressors among women engaged in long-term dementia care.

Violence and Abuse in Rural Older Women's Lives: A Life Course Perspective.

Intimate partner violence in later life includes physical, psychological, sexual, and financial abuse. Although some researchers have investigated how women in long-term violent partnerships cope with abuse, little is known about the history, experiences, and needs of older women who leave abusive relationships. From a feminist, life course perspective, we interviewed 10 women who had left their abusive partners later in life.

Trajectories of care: spouses coping with changes related to mild cognitive impairment.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) refers to non-normative changes in memory and cognition. While researchers are beginning to address the social consequences of MCI, no investigations have tracked how married couples respond to MCI over time as symptoms stabilize or become more severe. Guided by life course and symbolic interactionist tenets, we examined how 40 older couples in the United States adjusted to daily life after one partner was diagnosed with MCI and how their marital roles and relationship changed over a three- to four-year period.

Intimate partner violence in late life: an analysis of national news reports.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) in late life takes various forms including physical harm, sexual assault, and murder. Using national newspaper reports of IPV among elders, we identified the types of violence reported most frequently in media and examined how the abuse was conceptualized by reporters. We found that most cases of IPV reported involved murder, with men as perpetrators and women as victims.

Analysis of intergenerational relationships in adolescent fiction using a contact theory framework.

Intergenerational relationships and the media influence young persons' attitudes about aging. The authors analyzed 20 contemporary adolescent novels with intergenerational relationships using Allport's (1954) contact theory to assess whether the relationships demonstrated conditions that foster positive attitudinal change toward outgroups. When tenets were met, characters strengthened relationships, demonstrated resilience, and gained insight and respect for the other generation as they cooperated to resolve crises.

Family triad perceptions of mild cognitive impairment.

Objectives: We examined subjective perceptions of memory loss among older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and two other relatives in order to improve understanding of family coping. We also investigated contextual conditions associated with perceptions of family dynamics and relationships.

Method: We conducted interviews with 56 family triads (the elder with MCI, the primary care partner, and a secondary care partner).

Challenges to older women's sense of self in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

We examined the personal challenges older women faced as they began to rebuild their sense of self after Hurricane Katrina. In-depth interviews with 74 older women approximately 6 months after the disaster revealed challenges in four domains: maintaining social connections, family connections but loss of independence, reestablishing a sense of place, and managing their own health or the health of a loved one. Follow-up data gathered several months after the initial interviews from 21 of the older women indicated that feelings of displacement persisted as they dealt with health concerns, found a place to live, and managed family roles.