Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In Japan, the number of elderly people who require care has been increasing. Due to improvement of medicine and longevity, many families remain in caregiving roles longer than before. Also decreasing birthrate reduces number of people who can take responsibilities of caregiving, which force more family members look after not only their own parents but also other intimate family members. This review of literature was conducted to clarify what problems they face in taking multiple caregiving responsibilities. Electronic databases of MEDLINE, PubMed, Japanese Central Review of Medicine were used with the following key words: compound caregiver, compound caregiving role, multiple caregiving roles. Five English articles published between 2000 and 2018 were reviewed. In the most literature, several problems relating to stressors were found: reduction in social network and support, difficulty of prioritizing caregiving demands, and reduction in stress resiliency, and little personal time. Five literatures focus on caregivers taking care of their adult children with intellectual/developmental disabilities and their elderly family members at the same time. On the other hand, no literature focuses on those who take multiple care responsibilities for their elderly parents or/and relatives. It is necessary to conduct additional research and explore stressors and burden of caregivers with multiple responsibilities for more than two intimate family members.