The influence of social support on caregiver coping.

Investigations into the act of proving care to a dementing family member typically approach the phenomenon from a stress/burden paradigm. Many studies have sought to highlight the relationship between of a range of dementia care factors (such as illness duration, patient symptoms/characteristics, service provision, etc.) and the experience of caregiver stress.

What does phenomenology offer to the study of care-giving?

Care giving to a dementia sufferer is complex (Parsons, 1997) and inherently stressful (Baldwin et al 1989). It is suggested that the predominance of the care-giver stressor-burden research paradigm during the last thirty years has frequently been uni-dimensional, objectively oriented, generally equivocal, and unconvincing in its findings. Dillehay and Sandys (1990), suggest that preoccupation w ith such typically narrow approaches has delayed the much-needed development of a more accurate understanding of the lived experience (the phenomenology of care-giving).

The meaning of incontinence in dementia care.

Exploring ways of helping dementia sufferers and their carer's cope at home is central to government philosophy and legislation (Department of Health, 2001). The success of such support relies on having an accurate understanding of the nature and extent of the illness, and the caregiving experience. This article recognises and validates the pre-eminent role of spouse caregivers in the day-to-day maintenance of dementia sufferers.

Caregiver coping in dementing illness--implications for short-term respite care.

The increasing cost of caring for older people with dementia is just one of two key justifications for researching service interventions designed to help sustain dementia sufferers within their own home. Secondly, studies consistently highlight an almost universal determination by spouse caregivers to avoid institutionalisation by coping to the 'bitter end' or at least until their coping resources have been irrevocably depleted (Knight et al, 1993; Barnes et al, 1981; Upton, 2001). The experience of coping with a dementing spouse is known to be enduring, stressful and pathogenic to the caregiver (Schwarz and Blixen, 1997; Rosenheimer and Francis, 1992).