Repository logo
 

Seeing the collective: family arrangements for care at home for older people with dementia

Faculty Advisor

Date

2018

Keywords

Alzheimer’s disease, family care-giving, dementia, ethnography

Abstract (summary)

With the predicted growth in the number of people with dementia living at home across the globe, the need for home-based care is expected to increase. As such, it will be primarily family carers who will provide this crucial support to family members. Designing appropriate support for family carers is thus essential to minimise risks to their health, to prevent premature institutionalisation or poor care for persons with dementia, as well as to sustain the effective functioning of health and social care systems. To date, the high volume of research related to care at home and acknowledged low impact of interventions suggests that a re-examination of the nature of care at home, and how we come to know about it, is necessary if we are to advance strategies that will contribute to better outcomes for families. This paper describes findings from an ethnographic study that was designed to support an analysis of the complexity and materiality of family care arrangements – that is, the significance of the actual physical, technological and institutional elements shaping care-giving situations. In this paper, we describe the arrangements made by one family to show the necessary collectivity of these arrangements, and the consequences of the formal care system's failure to respond to these.

Publication Information

Ceci, C., Symonds Brown, H., & Purkis, M. E. (2018). Seeing the collective: Family arrangements for care at home for older people with dementia. Ageing and Society. doi:10.1017/S0144686X17001477

Notes

Item Type

Article

Language

English

Rights

Attribution (CC BY)