Category Archives: Family carers

Campaigning for more Dementia Care at Home – a carer’s call

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U Hla Htay is a former carer of his wife with dementia. Email: uhlahtay9@gmail.com (964 words)

I am involved in many research studies as someone with experience as a family carer. In this role I have come to understand that practitioners in health and social care can limit some of the negative effects of family caregiving on carers’ health. Some of them can use interventions such as therapy to increase family carers’ physical health and spiritual well-being. Improving carer well-being and increasing our ability to care for our family members is likely to increase quality of life for both carers and our family member (World Health Organization, 2012).

Mittelman and colleagues (2007) found managing the care of a relative with dementia is very lonely, time consuming and difficult, nevertheless, most of the family members they interviewed said they would prefer to keep their spouses at home with them for as long as possible. In my view the quality of life of both someone with dementia and family carers is generally better at home. These aspirations are achievable but come with a cost in human terms and financial terms. Most people with dementia want to remain living independently in their own homes as long as possible and to have a good quality of life and end of life. I am pleased to be supporting the new NIDUS (New Intervention for independence in Dementia) Study (being conducted by Claudia Cooper and colleagues) which is being funded by the Alzheimer’s Society.¹ The Social Care Workforce Research Unit is a partner in this study with other universities. Continue reading →

Providing Support and Care from a Distance

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Caroline White of the University of Hull is seeking participants in a new study. (462 words)

Family members and friends often provide support, help and care to others, instead or in addition to paid sources of care and support. These people (often referred to as carers, although this term is not embraced by all) are collectively estimated to save the UK economy £132 billion per year (according to figures from Carers UK in 2015) and have been the subject of much research and policy development. The majority of existing research about carers concerns those who support someone who lives with or near to them. However, as we become an increasingly geographically mobile population many parents, adult children, siblings, other relatives and friends find themselves living at a distance from those they care for and about. A new research project at the University of Hull is working to find out more about the experiences of those who provide help, care and support to a relative or friend who lives at a distance from them (we are meaning that they have to travel for one hour or more to visit them). Continue reading →

What social care support is provided to family carers? What support do family carers want?

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Jo Moriarty Nov 2014bJo Moriarty is Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Social Care Workforce Research Unit in the Policy Institute at King’s. This month sees the publication of the Research Findings of a project she led on Social care practice with carers. (736 words)

 

I’ve lost the man that I fell in love with and I now just feel like a full time nurse. (Nicola-Jane, Carer08)

Research about family carers often focuses on the problems they face. However, at a time when increases in social care funding are not enough to meet the additional demand for services and when it is expected that the gap between the number of people needing support and the number of people able to support them is widening, we need to focus not just on problems but on finding better ways to support the six and half million people providing unpaid help to members of their family and friends in the United Kingdom. Continue reading →