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Outlines rationale for the Alzheimer's Disease Support Center (ADSC), a telecomputing-based project designed to provide information and support to caregivers of persons with dementia. Describes ADSC's context, structure, content, and operation. Notes that inherent features of telecomputing make computer-mediated information and support systems like ADSC feasible complement to existing efforts to meet caregivers' needs. (Author/NB)

Examined use of paid help by impaired older people using data from Supplement on Aging to 1984 National Health Interview Survey. Results indicated that impaired elders turned to paid help when informal resources were unavailable. Paid help was more prevalent among elderly people with adequate economic resources and with access to entitlements. (Author/NB)

Investigated determining variables of caregiver burden in caring for impaired older relatives in South Korea. Economic factors, daily caregiving hours, and caregiver's health status emerged as most important determinants of caregiver burden among 169 primary family caregivers in South Korea. Caregivers' congruency with traditional caregiver selection norms remained statistically significant predictor of certain dimensions of caregiver burden. (Author/NB)

Develops theme of rethinking family as social form by positing overall approach that suggests development of various specific definitions of "family," each suitable for empirical or theoretical exploration of set of family issues. Development of one example, familial caretaking, definition of family for use in context of social policy, is provided to illustrate potential effectiveness of this approach. (Author/NB)

Replication in Virginia of Missouri's Volunteer Information Provider Program (to help rural families with caregiving) had mixed results, suggesting that the program should be revised before transfer to different populations. Length of training and volunteer time commitment were also barriers. (SK)

Studied 82 family caregivers to identify positive and negative factors associated with caregiving. Instruments included two new scales designed to measure perceived positive and negative events in previous month. For new scales, only items significantly correlated with depressive symptomatology were retained. Findings suggest scales may be useful in sorting out mediating factors related to caregiver burden. (Author/NB)

Analyzed bereavement adaptation among family caregivers to dementia patients. Bereavement group, as compared with active caregivers, dropped substantially in overload and increased in mastery and guilt. Depression showed curvilinear trend, declining from time of death, rising to preloss levels by end of year. Caregiver stressors, baseline adaptation, relationship difficulties, and psychological preparation were related to changes in well-being. (Author/NB)

Examined consequences of institutionalization for 555 caregivers of dementia patients. Consistent with stress process model, institutionalization was hypothesized to have large impact on primary effects of caregiving and lesser influence on secondary effects and well-being. Following placement, caregivers experienced relief from primary effects of caregiving and improved well-being, whereas other indicators of stress remained unchanged. (Author/NB)

Examined loss of identity resulting from engulfment in caregiver role among 555 adult children and spouses caring for Alzheimer patient. Loss was more common among spouses, females, and younger caregivers. Limited social contact and lack of social roles were related to greater loss of self. Found loss of self associated with lower self-esteem/mastery and greater depressive symptomatology. (Author/NB)

Examined 3 conceptually distinct dimensions of family conflict in relation to depression and anger among 555 caregivers of Alzheimer patients. Found that conflicts involving family members' attitudes and actions toward caregiver were associated with increased risk for depression among caregivers, whereas conflicts stemming from family members' attitudes and behaviors toward patient resulted in anger. (Author/NB)

Conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 40 francophone Quebecois family caregivers of frail elderly or mentally ill relatives and focused on caregiving relationship rather than on specificities of aging and mental illness. Fourteen factors emerged from analysis of informants' accounts of how they came to be primary caregiver. (Author/NB)

Imminent demographic changes require understanding of issues surrounding caring for family members while employed. Gerontology course offerings should focus on the caregiver role, and future corporate executives should be provided with basic gerontological education so that they will be able to understand and support their employees who are caregivers. (SK)

Ways to alleviate the stresses of providing care for elderly relatives include corporate-sponsored assistance programs, informal respite care, a parent care system, nonkin back-up system, support services for the care recipient, and cognitive restructuring. (SK)

Interviewed 88 family caregivers concerning experience with medical care of demented relatives. Most caregivers expressed overall satisfaction with services. Greatest dissatisfaction was expressed in regard to receiving insufficient information about dementia; fewest concerns were expressed about inappropriate physician control. Families reported frequently receiving vague diagnoses and insufficient referrals for supportive services. (Author/NB)

Relatives of patients with dementia completed questionnaires about caregiver stress and patients' functional and psychiatric problems during initial evaluation, at 4-17-month follow-up, and retrospectively. Retrospective accounts correlated well with initial reports but psychiatric symptoms were underreported in retrospective accounts. Spouses tended to report lower levels of psychiatric symptoms than did younger relatives. (Author)

Examined caregiving strain of 117 African-American and 464 white daughter caregivers. African Americans reported less role strain. Conflict between caregiving duties and caregivers' personal/social life was predictor for both groups. Unique predictors were poor perceived health, unavailability of respite support, and lower caregiving role demand (for African Americans) and poor quality of parent-daughter relationship and work conflict (for whites). (Author/NB)

Examined status transitions, future outlook, and conflict from perspective of caregivers and care receivers (n=117 pairs). Future outlook had powerful association with dyadic conflict. Other strong predictors of conflict were current happiness and relationship changes over three years (for care receivers) and care receivers' lack of social participation with family and friends and relationship changes (for caregivers). (Author/NB)

Used data from 144 elderly parent-adult child pairs to examine family caregiving. Final multiple regression model accounted for 63.2 percent of variability in filial role enactment. One main effect, parental marital status, and two interaction effects, child's gender with parental health and adult child's affection toward parent with geographical distance from parent, were statistically significant. (Author/NB)

Compared parent care experiences of 5 groups of 492 daughters: married, remarried, separated/divorced, widowed, never married. Women with husbands had more socioemotional and instrumental support, much higher incomes, less financial strain from caregiving, and less depression than other groups. They felt their own particular marital status made caregiving easier than did three groups of not-married women. (Author/NB)

Examined cognitive impairment as predictor of community services used by older adults. For 97 health care clients, effects of 4 predictors differed depending on clients' cognitive impairment: living arrangement, presence of secondary caregivers, client depression, and task burden of primary caregiver. Found no differences in predictors of social service use for cognitively impaired and lucid clients (n=246). (Author/NB)

Used data from National Survey of Families and Households to examine heterogeneity of caregiving experience for female family caregivers. Found caregiving to have negative associations for caregivers in number of domains, with women who cared for their husbands reporting most negative outcomes. Both longer duration of caregiving and coresidence put caregiver at risk for more negative outcomes. (Author/NB)

Interviewed 174 care-receiving mothers and their caregiving daughters concerning contributions of care receivers. Majority of respondents perceived that daughters received aid from mothers in return for help given. Mothers who reported giving advice and money had better health whereas mothers who reported giving information were more dependent than those who did not report such aid. (Author/NB)

Examined racial differences in composition of care-related decision-making networks. Data from 244 family caregivers revealed that African Americans were significantly less likely to identify older care recipient as involved or as key decision maker when compared to whites. Older individuals' physical and mental impairments were also important predictors of involvement in decision making. (Author/NB)

Identified five major types of motivation for parent care in a survey of 130 filial Koreans: respect for parents, filial responsibility, harmonization of family, repayment of debts, and filial sacrifice. Discusses qualitative dimensions of parent care in cultural context of Korea. Discusses importance of nurturing filial morality and need for advancing traditional values associated with caring relationships. (Author/ABL)

Examined role of adult siblings in caregiving for severely mentally ill using data from 109 siblings named by patients released from mental hospitals and 24-hour crisis care facilities. Results indicated that greater patient need, positive attitudes toward ill sibling, and other role involvements were major factors influencing sibling caregiving. (Author/NB)

Winbush suggests that family caregiving today occurs in a context of changed family composition and devalued attitudes toward families. Cantor highlights trends in family structure that may affect the ability of families to care for impaired members. (SK)

A review of demographics, family/household organization, timing of life transitions, and kin assistance shows that isolation of older people in society today is due to transformation and redefinition of family functions and values. Transfer of social welfare functions once performed by families exacerbates lack of assistance to elders. (SK)

Investigated sample of prime time network television advertisements to determine how gender portrayals differ in drug and nondrug commercials. Found that women were significantly more likely than men to appear as characters in drug advertisements than in advertisements for other products and that they were frequently portrayed in these commercials as experts on home medical care. (Author/NB)

Spouse and adult child caregivers of older adults with major depressive disorder (n=150) reported most difficult and most regarding aspects of caregiving. Content analysis of reports revealed seven areas of difficulty and three areas of reward. Difficulties and rewards were selectively associated with caregiver's identity, patient clinical characteristics, and caregiver emotional adjustment. (Author/NB)

Conducted meta-analysis of 14 studies to determine gender differences in caregiving stressors and burden. Found essentially no significant gender differences in functional impairment of frail care recipient or total caregiver involvement in care or in money management tasks. Female caregivers were more likely to carry out personal care and household tasks and more likely to report greater burden. (Author/NB)