Centre for Policy on Ageing



A comprehensive, stage-sensitive model of grief in dementia caregiving
Author(s)	Thomas M Meuser, Samuel J Marwit
Journal title	The Gerontologist, vol 41, no 5, October 2001
Pages	pp 658-670
Keywords	Dementia ; Spouses as carers ; Children [offspring] as carers ; Stress ; Bereavement ; Evaluation ; United States of America.
Annotation	Grief is an overlooked but important element of the caregiver experience. This study defines a model of caregiver grief to aid clinical intervention and to support further research, by examining the grief responses of 87 spouses and adult child caregivers of patients with progressive dementia representing mild, moderate, severe, and post-death. Questionnaire data and qualitative findings from 16 semi-structured focus group interviews provide the basis for a descriptive model of anticipatory grief in dementia caregiving. Significant differences emerged between spouse and adult child caregivers groups. Caregiver grief was found to fluctuate between intellectual, affective and existential poles depending on current care demands and expectations. The findings suggest that anticipatory grief in dementia caregiving is "real" grief, equivalent in intensity and breadth to death-related grief. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-011129217 A
Classmark	EA: P6:SN: P6:SS: QNH: DW: 4C: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.