The focus of the PhD thesis is on informal carers for parents with dementia living at home in Slovenia. The central research problem focuses on the adaptations, transitions and changes in life situations, statuses and roles as experienced by informal carers as dementia progresses. The underlying assumption is that the process of taking on caring for people with dementia is transformative and does not represent a transition from one status to another, but affects fundamental changes in the everyday life and statuses of the caregiver, which I have studied on dimensions that fundamentally define people's lives, i.e. health, work, relationships, time management, housing and material status (King and Pickard, 2013).
At the level of theory, the contribution to social work lies in understanding the processes of transition and transformation of informal caregiving. At the level of social work practice, what informal carers experience and what supports they need is crucial.
The results showed how carers are taking on new roles and the impact on daily life and social integration of the whole process of informal care for parents with dementia living at home. The contribution of these results at the level of social work practice is an in-depth analysis of what informal carers experience in the different phases of transitions (van Gennep, 1960) and what support they need. At the level of social policies, the results are relevant for long-term care planning, as they provide insights into how the process of adapting care takes place in the different stages of the development of dementia. At the research level, the original contribution of the thesis lies in the application and adaptation of van Gennep's (1960) analytical model of rites of passage to understand the experiences of informal carers in everyday life.
|
