Search results for ‘Subject term:"alzheimers disease"’ Sort:
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Personal losses and relationship quality in dementia caregiving
- Authors:
- ADAMS Kathryn Betts, McCLENDON McKee J., SMYTH Kathleen A.
- Journal article citation:
- Dementia: the International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 7(3), August 2008, pp.301-329.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Models of the dementia caregiving stress process specify that the impairments and behavioural problems of the person with Alzheimer's disease or related disorder (ADRD) and primary subjective stressors, such as burden, along with secondary stressors and appraisals, lead to negative outcomes such as depression. This cross-sectional study focused on the affective and relational aspects of this process, examining the associations of personal and relational losses and perceived relationship quality to ADRD caregivers' depressive symptoms, using a series of multiple regressions to specify a path model. This theoretical model specified personal losses and the subjective relationship quality as intervening variables between the care recipient impairments and subsequent subjective stressors, overload and role captivity. Loss of intimate exchange, current quality of relationship, and loss of self each had direct effects or indirect effects on caregiver depression that suggest the important role of personal and relational losses in the stress process.
Quality of informal care for persons with dementia: dimensions and correlates
- Authors:
- McCLENDON McKee J., SMYTH Kathleen A.
- Journal article citation:
- Aging and Mental Health, 17(8), 2013, pp.1003-1015.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
A mail survey of 148 family caregivers in Ohio, USA was conducted to explore styles of high-quality care, such as person-centered care, and poor-quality care adopted by informal caregivers and the characteristics of those who provide better care. Caregiving styles were measured with items from existing scales that had not been analyzed together before. Factor analysis of these items was used to identify styles of caregiving, and structural equation modeling was used to identify their relationships with caregiver and care-recipient characteristics. Three high quality-of-care factors (personalized, respectful, and compensatory) and three poor quality-of-care factors (punitive, controlling, and withdrawing) were found. The personality traits of agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism were related to higher quality of care, and the trait of extraversion was related to poorer quality of care. Wishful coping – an avoidance/escape strategy – was linked to poorer quality of care. The study helped to identify new dimensions of quality of care and caregiver personality traits and coping strategies associated with better quality of care. These results may be useful in targeting caregiver interventions to benefit both caregivers and care recipients. (Edited publisher abstract)
Survival of persons with Alzheimer's disease: caregiver coping matters
- Authors:
- McCLENDON McKee J., SMYTH Kathleen A., NEUDORFER Marcia M.
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 44(4), August 2004, pp.508-519.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Although persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) require increasingly more assistance with activities of daily living as their disease progresses, the caregiving environment has received little attention as a source of predictors of their survival time. We report here on a study to determine whether variation in survival time of persons with AD can be better explained by including caregiver variables such as coping style and depressive symptoms as predictors. A sample of 193 persons with AD residing in the community and their family caregivers was used to estimate the parameters of a Cox regression model of survival time that included both caregiver characteristics and care-recipient impairments as covariates. Caregiver wishfulness–intrapsychic coping was related to shorter care-recipient survival time, but instrumental and acceptance coping and caregiver depressive symptoms were not associated with survival time. Care-recipient impairments (dependency in activities of daily living, low score on the Mini-Mental State Examination, and problematic behaviors) were associated with shorter survival time. Because this study is the first to report the link between caregiver coping and care-recipient survival, further study to understand the dynamics is required. We discuss several possible mechanisms, including the possibility that caregivers engaging in wishfulness–intrapsychic coping are less psychologically available to the person with dementia. These caregivers may therefore provide less person-centered care that is responsive to the true capacities of the person with dementia, and thus they may inadvertently contribute to excess disability and consequent accelerated decline. Because wishfulness–intrapsychic coping was uncorrelated with instrumental or acceptance coping, our findings suggest that interventions to enhance coping skills among caregivers, which have focused primarily on increasing problem solving and acceptance coping, also may have to include specific attempts to reduce wishfulness–intrapsychic approaches to benefit not only the caregiver but the care recipient as well.
Early-stage cognitive impairment: a social work practice and research agenda
- Authors:
- ADAMS Kathryn Betts, McCLENDON McKee J.
- Journal article citation:
- Families in Society, 87(4), October 2006, pp.590-600.
- Publisher:
- The Alliance for Children and Families
With the current emphasis on early diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease, it is increasingly common to receive the diagnosis of impairment before functioning is seriously compromised. People in the early stages of cognitive loss experience distress related to their current and future functioning and yet are capable of participating in psychosocial treatment or support. This article presents a review of the literature describing the experience, characteristics and psychosocial service needs of individuals with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. It then reviews reports on psychosocial interventions with this population from the clinical and research literature. Psychosocial interventions are often aimed at alleviating the stress, depression, and anxiety while promoting a positive outlook. Finally, the authors discuss implications for future directions in establishing a cadre of evidence-based social work services for this group.