Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
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Still caring
- Authors:
- WRIGHT Fay, ALISON Virginia
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 22.8.91, 1991, pp.18-19.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
Reports on research carried out by Age Concern and the Spastics Society into older people caring for an adult disabled child.
Daughters caring for mothers: the experience of caring and its implications for professional helpers
- Authors:
- LEWIS Jane, MEREDITH Barbara
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 8(1), March 1988, pp.1-21.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Reports on in-depth interviews with women who had recently ceased caring for their mothers, examining carers' motivation, effects on the relationship and on external contacts.
Aged 70 and still a child: complexities, strains and gains of older children caring for their (near) centenarian mothers
- Authors:
- MACEDO Typhanie, SOUSA Liliana, RIBEIRO Oscar
- Journal article citation:
- Age and Ageing, 51(1), 2022, p.afab204.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Background: Longer lives increase the possibility of caring duties, which means that older adults looking after their ageing parents - as well as their own partners - is becoming an increasingly common scenario in developed countries. Objective: To explore the caregiving demands of very old caregiving dyads and the experience of maintaining the identity of a child at such an advanced age. Design: Qualitative study. Subjects: 15 participants (four males), all aged 70 or over and caring for their mothers, aged between 95 and 105 years old. Methods: Semi-structured interviews analysed thematically. Results: Caregivers are willing to care for their mothers 'until death tears them apart', despite the double strains they face, that is more self-limitations and added care receiver need. On a positive side, they feel 'happy, thankful and proud' for still having their mothers alive. They also describe that maintaining the identity of a child at such an advanced age was somewhat unthought of and unexpected but an important source of pride. Conclusions: These findings suggest that these oldest-old caregiving dyads are characterised by a relationship shaped by strong feelings of extended filial love, constituting a family feature that needs further understanding. Findings also underscore the challenges these carers face in dealing with several agents (secondary caregivers) and entities in the care provision. (Edited publisher abstract)
Informal care for older people provided by their adult children: projections of supply and demand to 2041 in England
- Author:
- PICKARD Linda
- Publisher:
- Personal Social Services Research Unit
- Publication year:
- 2008
- Pagination:
- 18p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
The PSSRU was funded by the Strategy Unit (Cabinet Office) and the Department of Health to produce projections of the supply of informal care for younger adults and older people in England to 2041. For younger and older adults , the supply of informal care was compared to demand in future years. The analyses focus on the supply of intense care provided for 20 or more hours a week and on demand for social care from disabled people. The results show that, on the assumptions used, future informal care supply is projected to be lower than estimated demand in respect of both younger adults and older people.
The joint effect of poor physical function and childcare on psychological distress among elderly Latinos
- Authors:
- FARONE Diane W., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, 5(1), 2007, pp.21-38.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia
A sample of 2,160 Latinos aged 65 and over was used to test the hypothesis that older people with poor physical function are likely to experience more psychological distress if they also provide child care than if they do not. Regression analysis shows that after controlling for age, gender, marital status and education, the joint effect of physical function and child care on psychological distress remains statistically significant. A further sub-group analysis shows clearly that poor physical functioning has a greater impact on psychological distress among those who provided child chare than among those who did not. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580).
The division of parent care between spouses
- Authors:
- SZINOVACZ Maximillane, DAVEY Adam
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 28(4), May 2008, pp.571-597.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Research on the division of family work has focused on household work and child-care to the exclusion of other domains, whereas studies on care-giving for older people typically ignore spouses' support to care-givers. In this paper the authors apply an approach that is typical of research on spouses' division of family work in caring for parents, in that the theoretical model focuses on the ‘cultural mandates’ that guide spouses' division of care, namely gender ideologies about appropriate roles, kinship obligations, and taboos against cross-gender personal care. Other predictors of the spousal division of care drawn from economic and health-care utilisation models are also examined. The analyses use pooled data on 1,449 care occasions from the first five waves of the US Health and Retirement Study. It was found that most couples to some extent share parent care, and that the involvement of husbands depended on a complex interplay of cultural mandates and contexts. Husbands participated most in personal care for parents if the care was mandated by kinship obligations (they cared more for their own than their wife's parents), and by cross-gender care taboos (they cared more for fathers than mothers). Other cultural contexts (such as race), a spouse's other commitments, health-related ability, resources (including support from the parents' other children), and care-burden also played a role. The findings demonstrate that decisions to care for parents emerge from complex negotiations among spouses and their children and siblings or, in other words, that parental care is a family endeavour.
Between elderly parents and adult children: a new look at the intergenerational care provided by the ‘sandwich generation’
- Authors:
- GRUNDY Emily, C HENRETTA John
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 26(5), September 2006, pp.707-722.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
The ‘sandwich generation’ has been conceptualised as those mid-life adults who simultaneously raise dependent children and care for frail elderly parents. Such a combination of dependants is in fact very unusual, and the more common situation is when adults in late mid-life or early old age have one or more surviving parents and adult but still partly dependent children. It can be hypothesised that for parents in this pivotal position, the demands from adult children and from elderly parents compete, with the result that those who provide help to one are less likely to provide help to the other. An alternative hypothesis, however, is that family solidarity has an important influence but is not universal, so that some pivotal-generation parents engage in intergenerational exchange in both directions, and there is a positive association between helping parents and helping children. To investigate this question, the paper presents an analysis of data from two broadly comparable national surveys, in Great Britain and the United States, on the care provided by women aged 55–69 years to their descendent and ascendent relatives. The results show that around one-third of the women reported providing help to members of both generations, and that around one-fifth provided support to neither. They broadly support the solidarity hypothesis, but provide some evidence that having three or more children is associated with a reduced likelihood of providing help to a parent.
Barriers to permanency planning for older HIV-affected caregivers
- Authors:
- BOYER Nancy Capobianco, POINDEXTER Cynthia Cannon
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 44(3/4), 2005, pp.59-74.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
HIV disease is now a major reason that grandparents and other older caregivers assume custodial care of minor children whose parents have died or become incapacitated. Grandparents are becoming custodial parents for a growing number of orphaned children, either through kinship care or informal means. Although these older caregivers are raising minors again because their adult children are unavailable due to a life threatening illness, we know little about whether these older surrogate parents are planning for the eventuality of their own deaths. This exploratory, qualitative, grounded theory study explored the permanency planning experiences of older caregivers of HIV-affected and HIV-infected minor children. Five barriers emerged impeding the permanency planning process for these older caregivers: Lack of knowledge about the legal process, lack of legal authority, emotional concerns, lack of informal social support, and HIV-related stigma. Implications for gerontological social work include the need for more supportive and legal services for older HIV-affected caregivers who are raising minors, encouraging formal adoption and/or negotiations with living biological parents, and helping grandmothers to manage disclosures and HIV-stigma.
Caring for elderly parents
- Author:
- MILLWARD Christine
- Journal article citation:
- Family Matters, 52, Autumn 1999, pp.26-30.
- Publisher:
- Australian Institute of Family Studies
This article looks at the benefits and drawbacks of middle-aged people taking responsibility for the welfare of their elderly parents. It draws on Australian survey data and case studies to explore the experiences of 50-70 year old elder carers.
The daily struggle
- Author:
- IZIREN Adeline
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 30.7.98, 1998, p.8.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
The author describes the highs and low of caring for her father who has dementia.