Because of the fact that dementia is more and more common disease among the older people and because the awareness, that dementia affects life course of the whole family, needs to be risen, I have decided in my graduation thesis to discuss care for people with dementia in their home environment in my municipality. The theoretical part of my thesis consists of presentation of dementia, its history, types and stages, which are followed by description of models of understanding dementia, where biomedical, psychological, sociological and social work model have been placed. It is followed by the discussion about needs of caregivers and definition of social work with people with dementia, where are also mentioned rights of people with dementia. In the following chapter, methodology and my research are described, namely I have used qualitative research, which main aim was to explore the problems that caregivers face on different areas of social work model of understanding dementia, and furthermore I have also wanted to find out how dementia affects life course of whole family and the course of care in general. The attention has also been paid to the relationships between caregivers and people with dementia and to present emotions, besides the aim of my research has also been to get to know who provides caregivers with help and support, as well as who gives them necessary information. At the same time the aim of my research was to check on possible connection between education level and level of awareness, where I have focused mainly on role of social workers.
The research showed that dementia strongly affects life of the whole family, furthermore it also presents several challenges and strains. Caregivers confront with loads of emotions, unfortunately usually prevail negative ones. The finding that formal care is considered as unavailable, mostly due to low income or occupancy is also significant. Informal caregivers are also often dissatisfied with amount of information that are available, in addition they are often not even familiar with social work roles when it comes to dementia, which should be changed with the help of different workshops and by rising awareness about our mission.
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