Caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias are known to experience many physical and emotional problems. However, research has consistently shown that the relationship between the demands of caregiving and the effects on the caregiver is not strong. Despite considerable research, a full understanding of how the demands of caregiving uniquely impact the individual has not been established. The present study examines anticipatory grief, an emotion that has not been studied to date for its possible impact on the current functioning of caregivers. Structured interviews, consisting primarily on standardized measures, were conducted with 100 caregivers. Results of the study show that physical and emotional problems and the expectation to place the patient out of the home were more likely to occur among those caregivers who expressed the most intense grief and those feelings of remorse and anger characteristic of the anger and guilt stages of grief.
This article will identify a number of variables that can be expected to influence the anticipatory grief process, including the stigmatization of the disease process, multiple losses and psychosocial death. The impact of each of the variables on the anticipatory grief process of caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) will be delineated. Finally, the anticipatory mourning tasks for caregivers at each stage of chronic illness will be presented. Emphasis will be placed on the special tasks of the caregivers of persons with AD and the role of the practitioner in assisting the caregiver to simultaneously remain actively involved with the patient, while they grieve their losses and prepare for death, which is the very complicated work of anticipatory grief.Due to the increasing sophistication of medical technology, the interim between the diagnosis of many terminal illnesses and death Rebecca J. Walker received her doctorate from The
The exploratory study discussed in this article attempted to shed some light on the nature of the depression and grief experienced by caregivers of people with dementia. The findings suggest that the depression so frequently described in the literature may not be as severe or clinically significant as previously thought and that it may be more precisely described as anticipatory grief. Viewing caregivers apparent depression as being the result of grief over the losses they are experiencing may assist practitioners in planning and evaluating the effectiveness of clinical interventions specifically designed for this growing group of clients.
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