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The role of urban green spaces in the well-being of people with dementia and their carers
50-77Views:225The aim of our empirical research was to explore how walking in green spaces in urban neighbourhoods contributes to the well-being of people with dementia and their informal carers. The study involved 3 caregiver – care recipient dyads, with carers keeping diary entries of regular walks together for a month (April-May 2021). In addition to the diary writing, carers completed a quantitative questionnaire as part of their research, in which they assessed their own and their relative's mental and mood state and their interaction before, during and after the walk. Based on the assessments of the questionnaires received from the 39 walks, results showed significant improvements in mental state and mood for both carers and cared-for persons, as well as in the way their dyads interacted with each other as a result of the walk. This trend was also supported and explained by the textual content of the diary entries. Thus, our small sample study was able to demonstrate that in the case of the caregiver – care recipient dyads we studied, a walk in an urban green environment had a positive effect on the mood and mental state of both partners, as well as on their cooperation. The significance of our results is that they support the role of urban green spaces in health promotion among chronic patients and their informal caregivers in a national sample: walking in nature can thus be considered a low-cost, generally positive and relatively easy and accessible intervention with a high impact.
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Dementia and family. The role of Alzheimer cafe in reducing the burden of caregiving families
34-46.Views:268In the last years, the international researches have turned towards families caring for elderly people with dementia /see the works of Zarit et al. 1985, 2005; Aneshensel et al. 1995; and Kaplan 1996/. The majority of these researchers analysed the stress burden of the caring family member and its consequences, role conflicts, and the tensions in the caregiving family (Zarit et al. 1985; Aneshensel et al. 1995; Kaplan 1996; Zarit et al. 2005). The revelation that in terms of Romania, we know nothing or almost nothing about the burden of families caring for elderly people with dementia and its effect on the primary carer, played was an important factor in the choice of topic. This is why, in a vast empirical analysis, in Transylvania, 50 interviews and questionnaire surveys were made with people caring for elderly with dementia in their own homes and 50 families whose relatives with dementia have been moved to a long-term residential home in the past 12 months from the time of the survey. Gathering data took three years (2015–2017). The research included the inquiry interview with the primary caregiver family member, in which we assessed the functional barriers and the psychosocial difficulties (Szabó 2000). The analysis of the levels of social skills was built upon this, and it unfolded the main characteristics of self-sufficiency, existing social skills, and social adaptation. This survey pointed out the everyday tasks in which the client requires help. With regard to family care, we have also analysed the independent living ability of people with dementia. These three angles offered the guidelines for the assessment of “objective burden” of the caring family member. Reviewing the distribution of caring tasks within the family is based on this, which helps us finding out who the key persons are, the ones undertaking the primary caregiving duties. For analysing the formation of roles within the family, we have devised our own criteria (Szabó–Kiss 2015). Starting from the objective burden, in regard to the “subjective burden”, we have obtained valuable indications about the emotional effect of caregiving family member. The detailed assessment of self-sufficiency through which we have analysed the measure of functional degradation of people living with dementia, was added to the devices of the analysis (Szabó 2000). The internationally approved scale of memory and behavioural problems (Zarit 1985) is connected to this, which measures the distractive attitude of the person living with dementia and its effect on the primary caregiver. The survey of the primary caregiver’s burdening is also connected (Zarit 1985), and so is the assessment of the negative and positive attitude towards the caregiving tasks (Farran et al. 1999). A six-step focus group is added to the devices of the research, in which the primary caregivers, by hearing each other’s cases and following thematic questions, open up more easily about the critical periods of caregiving and the pivotal factors of institutional placement.
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Elderly care out from the care system: the challenges of family carers
2-24.Views:424The overburdened long term care system increases the role of family carers in taking care of older adults. Undertaking the role of care put a great burden to family carers and cause many negative effects to the family roles, the field of employment and to the carers’ personal physical and mental health too. The formal care system solely focuses for the need of care receivers and hardly find services targeted to family carers. This study, using the analisis of ten family caregiver interviews, overlaps the main difficulties they are facing.
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The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on older adults with dementia and their caregivers: a narrative review
46-49Views:57The purpose was to gather the existing literature, provide an up-to-date overview and, in the future, to continue the research for this important topic.
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Quality of life of elderly stroke patients and their caregivers
38-39Views:56Stroke represents a major societal representation as well as economic problem in an individual's life. The question arises in connection with the life of the patient oneself as well as in one’s whole family. Stroke is one of the most common diseases affecting people at an old age.