Spousal dementia caregiving in the context of late-life remarriage

Sherman, Carey Wexler; Boss, Pauline

doi:10.1177/1471301207080367

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(79 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of network members were nominated to only one of the three networks. The findings confirmed earlier qualitative studies of remarried caregivers that a majority of stepfamily, specifically stepchildren, are perceived as “absent” or divested from relationships and support of their father and the remarried wife, even in the face of dementia (Sherman, ; Sherman & Boss, ). It appears that many remarried caregivers compartmentalize their overall social world from their more care‐specific networks.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Qualitative studies have documented the fluid nature of caregivers' supportive relationships (Carpentier & Ducharme, , ) as well as caregivers' experiences of unfulfilled expectations of assistance from close social ties and negative interactions with relatives in regard to care issues (Neufeld & Harrison, ). Research specifically on remarried wife caregivers has documented reports of minimal support from adult stepchildren (Sherman & Boss, ) and substantial tension and conflict with stepchildren regarding care‐related finances, inheritance, and husband's medical needs (Sherman & Bauer, ).…”

Section: Social Support For Dementia Spouse Caregiversmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dementia Caregiving in the Context of Late‐Life Remarriage: Support Networks, Relationship Quality, and Well‐being

Sherman

Webster

Antonucci

2013

J of Marriage and Family

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Caregiving research has not accounted for increasingly diverse and complex marital and family histories of older Americans. The authors examined social relations and care‐specific positive and negative support networks among late‐life remarried wife dementia caregivers (N = 61) to determine associations among network structure, relationship quality with and support received from network members, and global assessments of family and stepfamily disagreement on caregiver well‐being. Own family and friends predominated in the social relations and positive networks. Although over half (54%) of respondents included a stepfamily member in their positive networks, stepchildren comprised the largest group (35%) in the negative networks. Larger negative networks and actively negative interactions were related to greater caregiver burden, and more global disagreement with stepfamily was associated with greater depression and burden. The findings illustrate the complex nature of support and the value of targeted examinations of caregiving support dynamics among late‐life remarried older adults and stepfamilies facing health demands.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Social Support For Dementia Spouse Caregiversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dementia Caregiving in the Context of Late‐Life Remarriage: Support Networks, Relationship Quality, and Well‐being

Sherman

Webster

Antonucci

2013

J of Marriage and Family

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Those who remarry and blend their families also face challenges when family members experience a decline in health as family roles and responsibilities are often not defined. 20,21 Single parent households have also become more common, in part due to changes in marital practices, attitudes towards marriage and family, as well as advances in reproductive technology. Marriage is no longer a necessary criterion for becoming a parent 22 especially for those who have the means to care and provide for a child independently.…”

Section: Family Demographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Health and the Aging Family

Antonucci

Wong

2010

Public Health Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of the family in the health of its members is critical from birth to death. This review focuses on the aging family, recognizing that the family is one of the earliest and longest lasting contexts influencing health. In particular, we emphasize the changing demographics of the family including the increased numbers of older family members and the decreased number of children. We consider how best to adapt to the changing family so that its critical role in maintaining individual and public health can be retained and enhanced. We begin by highlighting the importance of taking both a life span and life course perspective, recognizing that individuals develop and change over their lifetime. At the same time, they are members of groups and organizations, which shape their life course. We next consider the dramatically changing demographics of the population generally and within families specifically. We reflect on how these changes impact public health both positively and negatively, taking into account the potential of the family as a resource and a risk factor. We next consider five life course epidemiological models of health: the immediate effects model, the social trajectory model, the cumulative biological model, the sensitive period or latency model and the physiological effects of trajectory model. We explicitly consider the relevance of these models for the family and its aging members. Finally, we highlight what we consider the most important implications of these issues for the health and well-being of older adults and families in an aging society.

show abstract

“…There are a handful of studies in the past 15 years that have utilized qualitative methods to assess and investigate family BA. The majority of these studies have thematically analyzed interviews (Brabant et al, 1994; Fravel et al, 2000; Garwick et al, 1994; Mu & Tomlinson, 1997; Sherman & Boss, in press; Tomlinson et al, 1999), whereas two studies used ethnographic observation approaches (Leavitt, 1995; Taanila et al, 2002), and another used a case‐study approach in a clinical setting (Sluzki, 1990). All of these studies used domain‐oriented interview protocols that asked questions about issues specific to the topic under investigation (e.g., uncertainty of an illness diagnosis, the death of a child).…”

Section: Measurement Of Bamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Family caregivers and alzheimer’s disease Boss and colleagues (Boss, Caron, Horbal, & Mortimer, 1990; Caron, Boss, & Mortimer, 1999; Garwick, Detzner, & Boss, 1994; Kaplan & Boss, 1999; Sherman & Boss, in press) have published a series of studies detailing their research applying the construct of BA to families with a member who has Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. In fact, in her ongoing refinement of the BA construct, Boss, Greenberg, et al (1990) has pointed to Alzheimer families as a prototypic example of an ambiguous loss situation in which a family member is physically present, yet psychologically absent (Type II).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Family Boundary Ambiguity: A 30‐Year Review of Theory, Research, and Measurement

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since its introduction 30 years ago, family boundary ambiguity (BA) has been a widely used construct in family stress research and clinical intervention. In this article, we present a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of published research studies that have used BA as a primary variable. Our review identified 37 studies investigating BA in 11 topical domains of research (e.g., missing-in-action families, death, divorce, stepfamilies, illness and caregiving, clergy families). We identify theoretical advancements pertaining to the construct and the methods used to measure BA in these studies. Drawing from this review, we discuss the current state of BA scholarship and identify steps that need to be taken to advance BA research in the future.This year marks 30 years since the construct of family boundary ambiguity (BA) was first introduced in a published article (Boss, 1977) to the interdisciplinary field of family stress. Since that time, the concept of family BA has been widely used by scholars, clinicians, and educators to study and intervene with families experiencing a wide range of stressor situations. However, despite the widespread use of the construct, little has been done to systematically document the research literature pertaining to family BA. This article presents such a review.We approached the task of reviewing the family BA literature with two intertwined purposes. First, we bring together a comprehensive, interdisciplinary review of published research studies using the concept of BA. We address three primary questions: (a) what is the current state of BA theory and how has it evolved over the past 30 years?, (b) what are the domains of study in which the concept of BA has been applied?, and (c) how is BA being operationalized and measured in this research? Our findings to these questions are presented in a descriptive fashion and comprise the main sections of this article (i.e., theory, research, measurement). In addition to cataloging the broad scholarly literature addressing BA, a second purpose of this project was to evaluate the current state of BA research and to identify future directions for a second generation of scholarship in this area. In the final section of the paper, we discuss several implications from our review for carrying BA research forward for another 30 years.

show abstract

Spousal dementia caregiving in the context of late-life remarriage

Cited by 30 publications

References 77 publications

Dementia Caregiving in the Context of Late‐Life Remarriage: Support Networks, Relationship Quality, and Well‐being

Dementia Caregiving in the Context of Late‐Life Remarriage: Support Networks, Relationship Quality, and Well‐being

Public Health and the Aging Family

Family Boundary Ambiguity: A 30‐Year Review of Theory, Research, and Measurement

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About