The Grief Course Of Family Caregivers Of Dementia Patients

Dementia is an elderly degenerative disease that causes a decline in the cognitive function of patients.At present,China’s aging process is accelerating,and the incidence of dementia is increasing year by year.The medical needs and nursing needs of patients are increasing.However,the actual nursing resources available to patients are relatively scarce.The main force.Not only do they have to face a huge burden of care,but they also face various kinds of losses that have caused the caregiver’s intense grief experience and affected the caregiver’s physical and mental health and quality of care.Based on this research,the family caregivers of dementia patients are taken as the research object,focusing on the grief phenomenon in the care process,adopting the phenomenological research orientation,through semi-structured interviews,in-depth research on the family caregivers of 20 dementia patients,using NVivo11 analyze and process the data to obtain the following research findings:The grief of family caregivers of dementia patients presents a dynamic development process.The development of the disease is the fundamental driving force for the caregiver’s grief.At different stages of the disease,the change in symptoms causes the caregiver to face the occurrence and change of loss,which triggers different grief reactions.Faced with different loss and grief reactions,caregivers will adopt different coping strategies.The staged development of the disease makes the grief course of the caregiver present a staged development,including three stages: clarification period,tolerance period and integration periodDuring the clarification period of the grief process,due to the ambiguity of the symptoms of the disease,the caregiver can experience the gradual loss of the patient’s ability and the small changes in the interaction mode caused by it,but the change in this interaction mode has not triggered the caregiver and the patient.Conflicts between the roles and relationships,the caregivers still regard them as a member of the family.At this stage,ambiguous loss is mainly manifested in the uncertainty of disease cognition,which makes the caregiver appear strange and doubtful,anger and complaint,and anxious,confused and helpless sad reactions in the care process The problem will be clarified continuously by collecting and integrating information and seeking medical diagnosis until the problem is clarified.With the accumulation of knowledge and experience and the clarification of patient problems,the caregiver’s perception and experience of loss have also changed,and the caregiver has entered a period of grief.At this stage,due to the deterioration of the disease,the caregiver faces multiple losses,and the uncertainty of the symptoms leads to the unpredictability of the caregiver’s future life,which makes the caregiver face many frustrations in care;the increase in the severity of the symptoms makes the care work The pressure of the surge increases,resulting in the loss of the caregiver’s personal life;conflicts in role recognition,conflicts in power attribution,etc.make the caregiver face a change in family structure,and the tension between the caregiver and the patient increases.Multiple losses cause caregivers’ anxiety,confusion,helplessness,anger and complaints,and contradictions.With the increase of time,caregivers become desperate,and some caregivers will temporarily leave the care situation to seek temporary relief and relief.In this regard,caregivers will look for some strategies to adapt and adjust.They endure the pain by living in the moment,adjusting the family organization model,and establishing support networks.At the same time,as the experience of coping increases,they begin to try to accept and normalize.New relationships and new roles between patients change the perception of loss and at the same time think about the meaning of their care.As the disease enters the middle and late stages,symptoms such as forgetting,aphasia,and paralysis make it difficult for the caregiver to interact with the patient’semotions,and the caregiver enters the integration period of grief.At this stage,they are faced with the weakening and breaking of the emotional connection with the patient,which makes the caregiver feel contradictory,which also makes them integrate their care experience and think about the meaning of their care.The two interpretations of "Fate Theory" and "Because of conscience" can help them eliminate the contradictions caused by the disharmony caused by the loss,guide their future care practice,maintain their new relationship with patients,and have a better face The psychological loss of the patient.The caregiver’s focus gradually shifted to the physical care of the patient and felt pitiful and distressed about the patient’s disease state.In this process,in addition to the role of disease development in promoting grief,the caregiver’s experience accumulation and cognitive changes promote the caregiver’s adaptation and growth.When the caregiver is faced with new problems,their positive response affects their perception of loss,and at the same time generates new experience,which will further affect the caregiver ’s cognition.In the context of long-term care,the new experience The continuous formation of and the continuous improvement of the loss of cognition make the caregiver better able to adapt to the various problems of the patient,and promote the development of the caregiver’s grief.Finally,based on the existing caregiver intervention services in China,combined with the research results of this article,this article proposes a group intervention framework for family caregivers of patients with cognitive impairment,which includes 4 parts: education and information provision,cognitive reconstruction,Maintain harmony and reconnect,and explore future life.Based on this framework,this article designs a grief support group intervention program for family caregivers of patients with cognitive impairment,which provides a reference for practical intervention.