Editorial

Sociocultural insights on dementia care-giving in Arab and Muslim communities: the perspectives of family care-givers

“…Despite the original focus of Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model on child and human development, many researchers have found his model an appropriate framework for scrutinising people's behaviours in relation to their physical and social situations in a variety of health-care settings and care-giving practices, including dementia care. For example, Moniz-Cook and Vernooij-Dassen (2006) claim that the ecological model allows a shift from the tendency to frame the tasks of dementia care in terms of a medical management model, to care-giving that is concerned with the wellbeing and overall quality of life of the older persons with ADRD and their families. It considers the immediate and wider influences on care-giving practices of family care-givers with attention to the intersections between Bronfenbrenner's model of five systems: the Microsystem (the direct context of the individual home and family); the Mesosystem (the close community and neighbourhood); the Exosystem (the larger social system such as school, workplace, policies and mass media); the Macrosystem (larger cultural context, such as attitudes, social ideologies and religion); and the Chronosystem (elements of time such as the physiological changes that occur with the ageing).…”