Abstract

Family caregivers of older adults with dementia have significant challenges across many domains. While this role has been found to be burdensome on the caregiver, increasingly, though, there are also significant positive aspects reported by caregivers (known as the positive aspects of caregiving—PAC). This participatory qualitative study of 30 United States caregivers of family members age 65 and older who died with a dementia-related diagnoses used in-depth qualitative interviews and directed content analysis to understand the data. The study addressed a gap in the research literature and asked about caregiver’s positive experiences during their family members’ last weeks of life and investigated what this meant for the caregiver. Three primary themes were identified: (1) The Importance and Impact of Family Traditions/Celebrations, (2) Use of Humor in Living and the Difficult Experiences at End-of-Life, and (3) ”The Gift of Caregiving.” These findings are explored and reviewed in light of other research looking at the positive aspects of caregiving for caregivers taking care of persons living with dementia, finding concurrence and some uniqueness across the results. Implications of the findings for families and social work professionals are reviewed.

摘要

患有痴呆症的老年人的家庭照顾者在许多领域都面临着重大挑战。虽然已经发现这个角色对护理人员来说是负担，但越来越多的护理人员报告了一些重要的积极方面（称为护理的积极方面 - PAC）。这项参与式定性研究对 30 名 65 岁及以上死于痴呆症的家庭成员的美国照顾者进行了深入的定性访谈和定向内容分析，以了解数据。该研究解决了研究文献中的空白，并询问了看护者在其家庭成员生命最后几周的积极经历，并调查了这对看护者意味着什么。确定了三个主要主题：(1)家庭传统/庆祝活动的重要性和影响，（2）生活中幽默的运用和临终时的艰难经历，以及（3）“照顾的礼物”。根据其他研究对照顾痴呆症患者的护理人员的积极方面进行了探索和审查，发现了结果的一致性和一些独特性。审查结果对家庭和社会工作专业人员的影响。