The article under analysis is titled Perspectives of women with dementia receiving care from their adult daughters and written by C. Ward-Griffin, A. Oudshoorn, K. Clark, and N. Bol. This article is devoted to the necessity of home care for people with dementia. The demand for dementia home care services has increased during the last years as far as more and more people are diagnosed to have this mental disease. The study under the analysis provides the interviews of people who have to live with relatives suffering from dementia, family caregivers, and case managers.
The article touches upon three main problems namely the rise of dementia cases, diminishing of care resources, and inexhaustible familial care. People with dementia need special care for the long term. This care may be provided by family caregivers, formal healthcare providers, or case managers (Baltimore, n.d.). This study presents the advantages and disadvantages of each of these care providers. The author provides three basic oppositions concerning the actual problems of these care providers namely “finite formal care – inexhaustible familial care: accessible resources rhetoric – inaccessible resources reality and diminishing care resources – increasing care needs” (Ward-Griffin, Hall, DeForge, St-Amant, McWilliam, Oudshoorn, Forbes & Klosek, 2011). The first opposition presupposes the quality of care. In most cases, family care is more effective rather than formal one. Formal care is restricted to a certain timetable. Formal caregivers devote so much time to sick people as they are paid for while family caregivers are ready to take care of the sick people so much time as the people with dementia need. As for the second opposition, formal caregivers are not accessible to everybody as far as their services are paid and not every family may afford such services. On the other side, family caregivers do not need money for their help as far as they do it because of their ties of blood. Nevertheless, it should be noted that formal caregivers sometimes are more stimulated as far as they are paid money for their services. Family caregivers are also stimulated but their quality of help depends only on their kindred love. More than that, formal caregivers are more skilled and experienced than the family ones as far as they are professionally educated for providing help to sick people (Dementia – Home Care, 2011). As for the last opposition, it is the problem nowadays that the cases of people with this diagnose rise while the quantity of formal caregivers diminishes. This profession is not very popular nowadays and it is not highly paid that is why there are not so many people who work as formal caregivers.
The authors highlight that there are a lot of cases when daughters take care of their mothers. Nevertheless, there are some difficulties in such relationships. They point out that there may be a feeling of guilt among the mothers before their daughters. The mothers feel like a burden for their daughters who spend so much time with them. Four main types of mother-daughter relationships are pointed out in this article namely custodial, cooperative, combative, and cohesive. Custodial and cooperative relationships are based on “the provision of and the receipt of tasks” while combative and cohesive relationships are connected with emotions (Ward-Griffin, Oudshoorn, Clark, & Bol, 2007). They point out that cohesive and cooperative relationships are more effective.
From the above said we may conclude that although the caregiver services are quite accessible nowadays there are some drawbacks of their usage. Daughters are very often observed as caregivers of their mothers with dementia. Nevertheless, it is pointed out that there are some difficulties in such relationships and sick people should be provided social and professional help.
Reference
Dementia – Home Care. (2011). Web.
Baltimore, M. (n.d.) Dealing with Dementia. Web.
Ward-Griffin, C., Hall, J., DeForge, R., St-Amant, O., McWilliam, C., Oudshoorn, A., Forbes, D. & Klosek, M. (2011). Dementia Home Care Resources: How Are We Managing? Web.
Ward-Griffin, C., Oudshoorn, A., Clark, K. & Bol, N. (2007). Mother-Adult Daughter Relationships within Dementia Care. Web.