Family care: the critical variable in community-based long-term care

Elderly spousal caregivers: knowledge of cancer care, perceptions of preparedness, and coping strategies

1. Care of a chronically ill or frail elderly individual is increasingly a normative family function, with negative and positive outcomes for those family members providing care. 2. Practitioners in nursing must be aware of the impact stress can have on family members when one member has been diagnosed with cancer. Nurses must assess potential caregivers' knowledge, skills, and preparedness in order to assist them in assuming their caregiving roles. 3. Nurses are in an ideal situation to provide the needed assessments and to develop individualized interventions that can support the efforts and care provided by the family caregiver.

Patients' status at home care discharge

This study describes patients' status following home care nursing discharge, and explores the relationship of sociodemographic characteristics, medical conditions and nursing needs to patients' status at discharge. The sample consisted of 367 adult patients receiving nursing services from a certified home health agency. The majority (61 percent) of patients could manage independently or only with the help of family providers at home care nursing discharge. The rest (39 percent) required at least some help from community service providers, were institutionalized or had died. Patients' discharge status was more closely related to nursing needs such as nursing problems, functional status and coping ability than to medical conditions.

Support and education for the caregiver and client in the home: an inservice project for community health nurses

This article discusses an inservice project implemented at the Berks County Visiting Nursing Association (VNA) in Reading, PA. The topic of support and education for the nonprofessional caregiver as an area in which staff nurses are lacking information is identified. Background information gleaned from a literary review is presented. Implementation and evaluation of the inservice project is discussed.

Care for the caregiver: social policies to ease their burden

The majority of caregivers are women, and a vast number of the households are single-parent, female-headed households. Public policies reward institutionalization of the elderly and penalize "sandwich generation" caregivers. Current state governments support the traditional ideal of the family. This incorrect vision promotes the creation of social policies that do not fit the real picture of a single, female-headed family with elderly parents needing care. "Sandwich generation" caregivers place themselves in jeopardy of poverty in their future years because of their caregiving activities for their elderly parents during their young-old years.