Aging in America: Adult Caregiving Conflict essay part 3
Aging in America: Adult Caregiving Conflict essay part 2
Life after caregiving
Caregiving provided to the elderly people factually comes to an end with their death. As it argued by multiple experts, in this case, human response to bereavement is characterized by the particularly multidimensional range of feelings, thoughts and behavior, while the most strong of them are grief and sadness (Holstein et al., 2010; Bialon & Coke, 2012; Brannen & Petite, 2008; Lai, 2010). Other reactions may include yearning and longing for the deceased, shock, hallucinations, anger, guilt, depression, health problems, irritability, mixed with feelings of relief and hope, as well as a sense of meaninglessness of existence. The latter is associated by psychologists with the facts that with the loss of a loved one, a grieving person often feels the loss of one’s own Self (Bialon & Coke, 2012). Previously making sense of their lives in caring for elderly husband or parents, caregivers now lose the object of care, i.e. their raison d’être, since all of their interests have for long years been focused on that person only. According to Brannen and Petite (2008) study, this problem is more often faced by women than men.
The experience of bereavement generally leads to the deterioration of physical and mental health. Thus, for instance, studies confirmed the existence of the increased risk of mortality among the surviving elderly members of the couple as compared to people of the same age still having their spouses to care about. According to The National Alliance for Caregiving (2009), the highest relative risk of mortality among the elderly people accounts for the period from 7 to 12 months after the death of a spouse. Morbidity rates are largely associated with psychiatric disorders in the elderly, particularly depression and various anxiety states. It is well validated in that the grieving patients often turn to their physicians with vague somatic complaints without obvious features of any disease, and the duration of these symptoms manifestation can range from 1 to 3 years. Studies have shown that in 30% of widowed elderly people, depressive symptoms start manifesting in a month after spouse’s death, in 25% – in 2-7 months, and in 15% – in 13 months after the loss (The National Alliance for Caregiving, 2009). The observations over bereavement experiences complications in older life have also found increase in the rate of alcohol, tobacco and sedatives addiction, as well as an increase in the level of anxiety and suicidal inclinations.
On a whole, grieving after the loss of a care recipient has sufficiently well-defined stages (shock, negation, adoption of a loss, living through pain, relief, and soft repeat all steps), passing through which a caregiver learns to control one’s grief and preserve mental health. Awareness about these stages and progress reached helps caregivers identify possible fixedness on one of the stages, and then timely seek professional support if this happens.
Resolving conflicts
Social and cultural norms including a bias against older people, tolerance of violence and gender inequality may enhance the magnitude of improper attitude to the elderly and conflicts arising in caregiving. Therefore, the major conflict-resolving policies should be aimed at raising awareness about the different contexts in which stress, misunderstanding, and maltreatment may occur, as well as about different forms they can take.
First of all, positive social attitude towards the elderly can be encouraged though creating wide opportunities for meaningful communication between older adults and young people, for example, in the frameworks of various intergenerational programs, exchange with letters or email messages, visiting local nursing homes, participating in social events and games. For instance, Alt et al. (2011) propose the introduction of useful and community projects built on the idea of knowledge exchange between generations, such as gardening in exchange for training in using Internet. Such intergenerational programs aimed at developing respect for the elderly people can start at school. Other effective measures also include targeted public awareness campaigns, describing specific situations and illustrating the implementation of appropriate methods of caregiving. Medical centers preparing caregivers for their role should be accessible nationwide. In their turn, media campaigns should include the use of well-organized means of communicating social advertisement messages – billboards with posters, leaflets, publications, websites, stories on television and radio, festivals and other similar events taking place regularly. As a result, every citizen should be aware of one’s duties and rights, be able to perform caregiving tasks, recognize maltreatment, be familiar with conflict resolution models, and know where to go for support if necessary.
In particular, one of the main tasks is the necessity to teach caregivers deal with their stress and frustration, as well as be able to reduce the signs of depression and anxiety states in their elderly care recipients. The most widespread relief methods include art, music and scent therapy (Bialon & Coke, 2012). Besides, basing on Brannen and Petite (2008), UNESC, 2012; Brank and Wylie (2014), the most helpful anti-stress approaches are 1) recognizing that the care recipient is not guilty for the position he/she is found in; 2) living for today; 3) finding out as much as possible about the diseases of the elderly person; 4) reorganizing schedule to leave some free time for oneself; 5) recognizing that there is always someone who finds oneself in worse conditions; 6)being one step ahead of the situation by rational planning; 7) seeking professional help in service providers; and 8) regularly discussing problems with those to trust. Stress, however, is not the only factor that can bring the caregiver to radical conflict manifestations. Most often there is a combination of several factors, including problems with mental or physical health, and emotional distress. Attributing conflict mistreatment by caregivers to stress factor only, factually means creating unjustified prejudice against the needs of the person, and not to protect the person or service itself. Thus, policymakers should adopt an integrated approach that would consider broader contexts of the culture of prejudice against the elderly, long-term domestic violence, family, gender, and intergenerational conflicts.
For instance, a meta-analysis by Bialon and Coke (2012) has shown that psychosocial interventions into the caregiving process, like short periods of the recipient’s hospitalization, enable a caregiving adult relax and solve one’s own health issues, as well as significant psychological problems inside family, work relations, and Self. While, according to their report, group psychosocial interventions provide a small positive effect, the survey concluded that individual interventions yield significant positive shifts, especially in conflicts caregivers face after the loss of the objects of care. Still, this is a difficult area for study, involving sensitive data, but several recent researches are promising, though they do not provide distinct results.
Conclusion
Caregivers play a vital role in supporting elderly family members who experience needs for assistance, especially under conditions of the increasing population aging in the USA. Caregivers’ role involves a rage of moments that bring satisfaction from performing natural duties, but along with that, it sets high demands on them, sometimes making the level of stress and distress among caregivers rise to unprecedented marks. Current research in this field reveals a number of dependencies and tendencies observed among caregivers and care recipients, however, they often focus on one of sides of the problem. In particular, we reckon that further research should be directed at measuring more accurately the interdependencies between caregivers’ and care recipients’ stress levels. Until appropriate mechanisms are deeply studied, medical services have to deal with two patients, suffering from unresolved inner conflict, at a time. It is also necessary to concentrate further efforts on clearly describing the matrix of risk factors that cause conflicts in caregivers and specifying them in a model for conceptualizing reactions of people in this category. At the same time, the reviewed assessment tools that can be more widely used for a more accurate assessment of ways for conflict resolutions in each particular situation. Conflict and maltreatment prevention campaigns are another promising research topic, but further research is needed regarding the practical results of actions undertaken.
Do you like this essay?
Our writers can write a paper like this for you!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...