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Who cares? Managing obligation and responsibility across the changing landscapes of informal dementia care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2012

VALERIE EGDELL
VALERIE EGDELL*
Affiliation:
Employment Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Valerie Egdell, Employment Research Institute, Edinburgh Napier University, Craiglockhart Campus, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper explores the different ways in which informal carers for people with dementia negotiate their care-giving role across the changing organisational and spatial landscape of care. In-depth qualitative data are used to argue that the decisions of carers are socially situated and the result of negotiations involving individuals, families and wider cultural expectations. These decisions affect where care occurs. In addressing these issues this paper draws attention to the lack of choice some carers may have in taking on the care-giving role; how and why carers draw upon support; and the different expectations of the care-giver's capabilities across the different sites of care, specifically at home and in nursing homes. It concludes that research and policy attention should focus on how the expectations about the role and abilities of carers are affected by where, and how, care is delivered. In doing so this paper contributes to the emerging health geography literature on care-giving as well as developing the spatial perspective in the established gerontological literature.

Keywords

informal caredementialandscapes of careobligationresponsibility
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , July 2013 , pp. 888 - 907
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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