癡매老人 扶養負擔에 影響을 주는 요인에 관한 硏究

Abstract

In aging society, the burden and trouble in supporting the demented elderly can be anybody's problem. However, we are likely to push this responsibility off just into his/her family or close relatives. This opinion must be reformed. It is necessary for us to try to understand this problem within a social point of view. In this study, to find the effective solutions of lessening the burden and trouble in supporting the demented elderly, I conducted a questionnaire survey of the main supporters of them. This survey includes these items ; the objective cause of stress(the aged patients' functional loss), the supporter's individual condition and the burden of care and support, environmental factors and the burden of care and support, and etc.(gender, relationship). The results are as follows. 1. objective causes of stress(the aged patients' functional loss) : The results show that among the several sub-factors of stress, the demented elderly's cognitive, emotional and judgemental damages are proved the main cause of the stress, while the physical loss or vital functional disorder have no direct connection with the amount of burden. Probably, the fact that most of the demented elderly as object of the research are in use of the short-term clinic center, and most of them just show light symptoms of dementia leads such result. 2. The supporter's individual condition and the burden of care and support : The amount of responsibility that the patient's son and daughter have has no immediate connection with the burden. The stronger responsibilities they have of their ill parents, however, the more burden they are likely to get of caring and supporting them socially and physically, while the more actively they manage their problems, the less burdensome they feel. 3. Environmental factors and the burden of care and support : The social awareness has a close connection with the burden of the family. The more support the society provides, the less burden the patient's family have. Similarly, the awareness of the family member within themselves also has a great influence. The more assistance the family members provide to each other, the less their problems weigh on them. 4. Other factors(gender/relationship) : The research shows that women feel more burdensome of caring and supporting patients than men. In relationship, the daughters-in law of patients express the most stress of caring, while patients' daughters show the least. In conclusion, several relative factors affect the amount of stress that supporters of the demented elderly have. To help the family members to care and support them steadily and pleasantly, reducing the stress is the most important things among many other methods. There are various ways of reducing the stress. Extending the social, and the family member's awareness of the burden on care, and urging them to manage their problem actively can be some of the successful solutions. More than anything else, we should bear it in mind to share the responsibilities with other family members, relatives, and try to find the possible ways together. Volunteering home service, social welfare center for long, or short-term protection, education and campaign of understanding the exact symptoms and how to care for patients, and promoting the social or private organization for urging the social awareness and the responsibilities of family members are necessarily required as well.