Abstract
Background: The population aging together with an increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) should also be accompanied by a growing interest in healthcare research. Therefore, this study examines the nature of the caregiver’s work, its mental and physical demands, experience and questions, and the relationship between the person with AD, the caregiver, and family members. Methods: As social media has become the place where people share family situations, a Facebook private discussion group of caregivers was chosen as the analytical data source. The study documented the daily-life situations of one-hundred dyads based on 2110 posts published during a six-month or longer period. A content analysis classified communication into 35 categories of basic, instrumental, and extended activities of daily livings (ADLs) and newly designed caregiver’s daily issues (CDIs). Results: The frequently discussed topics were related to exhaustion and feelings of “giving up” by caregivers and interpersonal communication and help from family members. The highest support was found for the topics of aging and dying and family events. Conclusion: The communications of caregivers were diverse and rather associated with co-occupational ADLs and CDIs than basic or instrumental ADLs. The support of the group was mainly provided in coping with fundamental life changes.
Highlights
Aging is one of the most significant phenomena of the contemporary world, bringing changes in family social relations, and in healthcare services and public, local, and family economies.Globally, the number of persons aged 80 or over is projected to triple by 2050
The results are provided in the structure of individual activities of daily livings (ADLs) concepts and the caregivers issues concept and include their both quantitative and qualitative dimensions
Caregivers expressed feelings as: “I better get in bed myself to be ready for the day, but can’t to go because don’t want give up the "My Time”; “Does anyone here resent the person you are caring for because you had to give up your entire life to care for them?” In this context, it is meaningful to note that the fear of the future category contained similar posts, which were bounded with the future of person with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), caregiver or family state of health: “It is impossible to have Christmas out of the house, year.”
Summary
Aging is one of the most significant phenomena of the contemporary world, bringing changes in family social relations, and in healthcare services and public, local, and family economies.Globally, the number of persons aged 80 or over is projected to triple by 2050. Population aging is predicted to have a profound effect on societies and on fiscal and especially health care burdens of every country [1] and bringing new challenges for family care [2,3,4]. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most frequent form of dementia and accounts for 60–80% of people affected by dementia [5,6]. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, irreversible and disabling, producing a high socioeconomic burden, even higher than in cases of other diseases [7,8,9]. This study examines the nature of the caregiver’s work, its mental and physical demands, experience and questions, and the relationship between the person with AD, the caregiver, and family members
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