Caregiving Demands of Patients With Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Several recent articles have begun to provide a broader understanding of the complexity of family caregiving for Alzheimer's patients, though caregiving is a complex phenomena and additional studies are clearly still needed (Kuhlman, Wilson, Hutchinson, & Wallhagen, 1991). Family caregivers take on the responsibility for an impaired loved one at home in absence of viable alternatives and experience the course of Alzheimer's disease as an insidious, progressive, and deteriorative situation (Morgan & Laing, 1991; Robin, Mace, & Lucas, 1982; Willoughby & Keating, 1991; Wilson, 1989a, 1989b). Central to this article is the premise, derived from Lazarus and Folkman's model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) that some Of the demands of caregiving are unique to the illness that is being cared for. Care for a family member who has a cardiac illness or diabetes is not the same as care for a member with Alzheimer's disease. The distinct qualities of the illness substantially influence the way that caregiving is performed. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) suggested that responses to potentially stressful events be examined through two central factors: the situational features that give rise to!the appraisal of stress and the personal stakes and beliefs that make aspects of the situation salient or stressful. Stress is determined not only by the difficult events in the environment but also by a person's appraisal of the situation and their resources and capacities to meet that difficulty.