Caregiving Systems

Caregiving has emerged as a critical issue in the second half of the life cycle. With the growth of the older population, there have been dramatic increases in the number of people needing care and assistance. The responsibility for care typically falls on families at a time when they have limited resources to meet these needs. At a societal level, the need for care for growing numbers of disabled elders poses a major challenge for how to organize supportive services in an efficient and responsive system. Bringing together multiple perspectives on caregiving, the authors' explore informal and formal family caregiving and the pivotal issue of how these systems interface and interact. An overview of this variation is provided by examining family caregiving from three perspectives: * the effects of culture on helping patterns and family responsibility, * how different disabilities affect patterns of family care, and * longitudinal perspectives on the impact that caregiving has on family members.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Caregiving has emerged as a critical issue in the second half of the life cycle. With the growth of the older population, there have been dramatic increases in the number of people needing care and assistance. The responsibility for care typically falls on families at a time when they have limited resources to meet these needs. At a societal level, the need for care for growing numbers of disabled elders poses a major challenge for how to organize supportive services in an efficient and responsive system. Bringing together multiple perspectives on caregiving, the authors' explore informal and formal family caregiving and the pivotal issue of how these systems interface and interact. An overview of this variation is provided by examining family caregiving from three perspectives: * the effects of culture on helping patterns and family responsibility, * how different disabilities affect patterns of family care, and * longitudinal perspectives on the impact that caregiving has on family members.

The rapid growth of home health care has raised many unsolved issues and will have consequences that are far too broad for any one group to analyze in their entirety. Yet a major influence on the safety, quality, and effectiveness of home health care will be the set of issues encompassed by the field of human factors research-the discipline of applying what is known about human capabilities and limitations to the design of products, processes, systems, and work environments. To address these challenges, the National Research Council began a multidisciplinary study to examine a diverse range of behavioral and human factors issues resulting from the increasing migration of medical devices, technologies, and care practices into the home. Its goal is to lay the groundwork for a thorough integration of human factors research with the design and implementation of home health care devices, technologies, and practices. On October 1 and 2, 2009, a group of human factors and other experts met to consider a diverse range of behavioral and human factors issues associated with the increasing migration of medical devices, technologies, and care practices into the home. This book is a summary of that workshop, representing the culmination of the first phase of the study.

According to the US Census Bureau, the US population aged 65+ years is expected to nearly double over the next 30 years, from 43.1 million in 2012 to an estimated 83.7 million in 2050. These demographic advances, however extraordinary, have left our health systems behind as they struggle to reliably provide evidence-based practice to every older adult at every care interaction. Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), designed Age-Friendly Health Systems to meet this challenge head on. Age-Friendly Health Systems aim to: Follow an essential set of evidence-based practices; Cause no harm; and Align with What Matters to the older adult and their family caregivers.

"The Caregiving Trap" combines the authentic life and professional experience of Pamela D. Wilson, who provides recommendations for overwhelmed and frustrated caregivers who themselves may one day need care. "The Caregiving Trap" includes stories about Pamela's actual personal and professional experience along with end of chapter exercises to support caregivers. Common caregiving issues include: A sense of duty and obligation to provide care that damages family relationships Emotional and financial challenges resulting in denial of care needs Ignorance of predictive events that result in situations of crises or harm Delayed decision making and lack of planning resulting in limited choices Minimum standards of care supporting the need for advocacy

Adult Attachment: A Concise Introduction to Theory and Research is an easy-to-read and highly accessible reference on attachment that deals with many of the key concepts and topics studied within attachment theory. This book is comprised of a series of chapters framed by common questions that are typically asked by novices entering the field of attachment. The content of each chapter focuses on answering this overarching question. Topics on the development of attachment are covered from different levels of analysis, including species, individual, and relationship levels, working models of attachment, attachment functions and hierarchies, attachment stability and change over time and across situations, relationship contexts, the cognitive underpinnings of attachment and its activation of enhancement via priming, the interplay between the attachment behavioral system and other behavioral systems, the effects of context on attachment, the contribution of physiology/neurology and genetics to attachment, the associations/differences between attachment and temperament, the conceptualization and measurement of attachment, and the association between attachment and psychopathology/therapy. TEDx talk: The Power of (Secure) Love by Omri Gillath: https://youtu.be/PgIQv-rTGgA Uses a question-and-answer format to address the most important topics within attachment theory Presents information in a simple, easy-to-understand way to ensure accessibility for novices in the field of attachment Covers the main concepts and issues that relate to attachment theory, thus ensuring readers develop a strong foundation in attachment theory that they can then apply to the study of relationships Addresses future directions in the field of attachment theory Concisely covers material, ensuring scholars and professionals can quickly get up-to-speed with the most recent research

The story of one woman’s struggle to care for her seriously ill husband—and a revealing look at the role unpaid family caregivers play in a society that fails to provide them with structural support. Already Toast shows how all-consuming caregiving can be, how difficult it is to find support, and how the social and literary narratives that have long locked women into providing emotional labor also keep them in unpaid caregiving roles. When Kate Washington and her husband, Brad, learned that he had cancer, they were a young couple: professionals with ascending careers, parents to two small children. Brad’s diagnosis stripped those identities away: he became a patient and she his caregiver. Brad’s cancer quickly turned aggressive, necessitating a stem-cell transplant that triggered a massive infection, robbing him of his eyesight and nearly of his life. Kate acted as his full-time aide to keep him alive, coordinating his treatments, making doctors’ appointments, calling insurance companies, filling dozens of prescriptions, cleaning commodes, administering IV drugs. She became so burned out that, when she took an online quiz on caregiver self-care, her result cheerily declared: “You’re already toast!” Through it all, she felt profoundly alone, but, as she later learned, she was in fact one of millions: an invisible army of family caregivers working every day in America, their unpaid labor keeping our troubled healthcare system afloat. Because our culture both romanticizes and erases the realities of care work, few caregivers have shared their stories publicly. As the baby-boom generation ages, the number of family caregivers will continue to grow. Readable, relatable, timely, and often raw, Already Toast—with its clear call for paying and supporting family caregivers—is a crucial intervention in that conversation, bringing together personal experience with deep research to give voice to those tasked with the overlooked, vital work of caring for the seriously ill.

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.