Coping with your ailing parent: A guide for healthy caregiving.

摘要

The number of individuals age 65 and older continues to rise at a rate greater than any other age group in the United States. A result of this increase is that many adult children are now being thrust into the role of providing care and support for their aging and ailing parents. Due to economics, many of these individuals are choosing to cohabitate with their parents. While adult children may have provided care and support for their parents throughout history, the improvements in medicine means that adult children a likely to provide care for a much longer period of time. Additionally, most of these individuals are not prepared to take on this new role. A literature review of manuals for caregiving and effects of caregiving was conducted, and the results indicated the need for more resources to help adult children understand the effects of established parent-child relational patterns and dynamics, their roles as caregivers, and strategies to improve caregiving and self-care. In order to address these findings, a proposed manual was created to provide resources to help stabilize family relationships and improve the quality of life for caregivers and their parents. The manual was evaluated by 6 professionals within the fields of aging, family relationships, end-of-life medical care, and grief and bereavement for strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, 13 individuals who had previously or were currently providing care for a loved one evaluated the manual. Quantitative and qualitative components were utilized during the evaluation process. Results of the evaluations indicated the proposed manual could be a useful tool to aid untrained caregivers in providing higher quality care for their ailing parents. Themes from the qualitative components of the evaluation and potential areas for further development of the manual were identified and discussed within the study.