Centre for Policy on Ageing



The Church's response to Alzheimer's disease
Author(s)	Jon C Stuckey
Journal title	Journal of Applied Gerontology, vol 17, no 1, March 1998
Pages	pp 25-37
Keywords	Dementia ; Spouses as carers ; Pastoral care ; Church services ; Christianity ; United States of America.
Annotation	This study examined churches' responses to families living with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Forty informants (19 spousal caregivers and their respective clergy) in Cleveland, Ohio, United States (US) were interviewed with four research goals in mind: to identify the importance of church participation; to examine the nature of the caregiver-clergy dyad; to identify church-based intervention programmes; and to develop guidelines for offering assistance to congregants. Findings show that churches can play an important support role to AD families. Church participation remained important for most informants, even with the added demands of caregiving. Most provided information congruent with that of their clergy and most were satisfied with their churches' responses to their situations. Several successful church-based programmes were identified, and six guidelines for responding to AD families emerged from the data. Future research should examine how non-Christian faiths are responding to members who have AD or related illnesses.
Accession Number	CPA-980401402 A
Classmark	EA: P6:SN: OW: OWM: TS: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

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