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Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder

Memory disorders have become a major public, social, and health concern among the aging population, and many of those who are affected are cared for at home by their spouse. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the individual experiences of 10 older caregivers who were looking after a s...

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Autores principales: Turjamaa, Riitta, Salpakari, Johanna, Koskinen, Liisa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7348844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32294987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8020095
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author Turjamaa, Riitta
Salpakari, Johanna
Koskinen, Liisa
author_facet Turjamaa, Riitta
Salpakari, Johanna
Koskinen, Liisa
author_sort Turjamaa, Riitta
collection PubMed
description Memory disorders have become a major public, social, and health concern among the aging population, and many of those who are affected are cared for at home by their spouse. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the individual experiences of 10 older caregivers who were looking after a spouse with a memory disorder in 2016. Data were collected from volunteers who were recruited from a memory clinic at a Finnish health center using the thematic interview method and processed using inductive content analysis. The participants were six female and four male caregivers who had been married for over 10 years. The results indicated that caring for a spouse with a memory disorder involved a number of factors. These included the impact of social networks and changes in their everyday life, collaboration with service providers, and the caregivers’ well-being. However, our study showed that caregivers felt that the formal multiprofessional services they received were fragmented, which means that they were less likely to provide a holistic approach to caregivers’ situations. Better multiprofessional cooperation is needed in the community, including services such as memory clinics, home care and practical services, day centers, and short-term respite in care homes.
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spelling pubmed-73488442020-07-22 Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder Turjamaa, Riitta Salpakari, Johanna Koskinen, Liisa Healthcare (Basel) Article Memory disorders have become a major public, social, and health concern among the aging population, and many of those who are affected are cared for at home by their spouse. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the individual experiences of 10 older caregivers who were looking after a spouse with a memory disorder in 2016. Data were collected from volunteers who were recruited from a memory clinic at a Finnish health center using the thematic interview method and processed using inductive content analysis. The participants were six female and four male caregivers who had been married for over 10 years. The results indicated that caring for a spouse with a memory disorder involved a number of factors. These included the impact of social networks and changes in their everyday life, collaboration with service providers, and the caregivers’ well-being. However, our study showed that caregivers felt that the formal multiprofessional services they received were fragmented, which means that they were less likely to provide a holistic approach to caregivers’ situations. Better multiprofessional cooperation is needed in the community, including services such as memory clinics, home care and practical services, day centers, and short-term respite in care homes. MDPI 2020-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7348844/ /pubmed/32294987 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8020095 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Turjamaa, Riitta
Salpakari, Johanna
Koskinen, Liisa
Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title_full Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title_fullStr Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title_full_unstemmed Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title_short Experiences of Older Spousal Caregivers for Caring a Person with a Memory Disorder
title_sort experiences of older spousal caregivers for caring a person with a memory disorder
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7348844/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32294987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8020095
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