Practical Research On Social Work Enhancing The Empathy Of The Caregivers Who Care For The Elderly With Dementia

With the acceleration of the social aging process,our country has paid more attention to the quality of life of the elderly in their later years.The pension institutions is a critical part of the elderly care industry.Moreover,the quality of the services provided by the pension institutions and their caregivers are important factors influencing the quality of life of the elderly.The quality of services for the elderly with dementia is much higher.Because the illness of the demented elderly will gradually reduce their memory,self-control,and self-care ability,but the dependence on the caregiver will continue to increase,therefore,their quality of life will be more affected by the quality of the caregiver.Based on this situation,this study is mainly guided by the empathy theory,using group work methods to engage in social work to improve the empathy of caregivers of the demented elderly in the B organization in Kunming,Meanwhile,this study research the interactions,the status of caregivers’ empathy and their causes.The author used the Jefferson Empathy Scale to measure demented elderly caregivers in the institution and found that the caregivers’ ability to empathy is low.In addition,caregivers have problems such as cognitive biases,weak emotional links with the elderly with dementia,and lack of effective communication skills.The author explored the causes from three perspectives of the demented elderly,caregivers and institutions,and found that the more dependence of the demented elderly increased,the more pressure of the caregivers have;besides,the caregivers lack the approaches for knowledge acquisition and have low willingness to improve themselves;the institutional training system was not perfect,which has caused that caregivers are not motivated to learn.Accordingly,based on the collection of domestic and foreign related empathy theory and practical research,this study designed a plan of group work for the three components of cognitive empathy,emotion empathy,and behavior empathy.Dementia elderly caregivers are involved in group work to explore specific practice models and operations to improve the empathy of caregivers of the demented elderly in social work intervention.It was found that the group can effectively improve the caregiver’s empathy.Through the learning of dementia and emotional expression knowledge,the caregiver’s cognitive empathy can be improved.The methods of reminiscence training and sharing experience can help caregivers to enhance their emotional identification with the demented elderly.The skills of listening and positive feedback,role-playing,case analysis,etc.,can not only consolidate cognitive empathy and emotional empathy,but also make caregivers to learn to deal with the emotions and behaviors of demented elderly more effectively,reduce their work pressure and improve the positive relationship between caregivers and the demented elderly,thereby improve the quality of care for the demented elderly.