Given Elderly Care Essay, Research Paper

?Older People and Care Giving

Care Giving Networks Variations by Marital Status?

To define what a care giving network is, would be to say that it is the care for elderly persons based on how an elderly is taken care of, and by whom they are given the care from. So many factors affect this situation though. Situations that may depend on this decision may include marital status, age, and what not. The information at hand though, is how marital status affects the decision on care for these elderly. This kind of information leads to some formulated hypotheses. The first of three hypotheses is the task-specificity hypothesis, then the substitution hypothesis, and finally supplementation.

It has been formed universally though that these three hypotheses have been known to play a factor in the characteristics found in marital status, that have lead to the specific care giving hypothesis types.

The supplementation hypothesis is one that is in regards to formal care given and influenced by informal support. The informal caregivers range from mediators, referrals, or gatekeepers to the formal system. The primary care giver is taken from some sort of informal support network. These support networks correspond as links between the elderly person receiving care and the formal system of care. This hypothesis was taken from Andersen?s model of health service distribution. It has been shown that more involved and influential family members are also more involved in the care giving itself.

Still, the use of in home nursing and more formal services are rendered more than the informal care.

The task-specify hypothesis explains the different functions provided by family, formal helpers, friends, in the support of providing care. This hypothesis takes a look at the connection between the relationships of actors and people outside the receiver of care giving. The hypothesis looks at the lifestyles, the contact, the connections, and the relationships between the provider and the receiver. This hypothesis includes a substitution principle, which is termed to say that when primary service is not available, a secondary source is brought in to give care.

The substitution hypothesis is brought in to play when the immediate relatives to the care receivers are not around or not available. If this is the case, then substitutes are brought in to play the absent roles of what the relatives would be playing. These roles are played by friends of the family or some what professional care givers associated with the family requiring care. The hypothesis holds different information about formerly married and never been, married people. The people with marriage prior to the care giving requirement, would usually be likely to have their children come in and help out with the care. Those without, would more than likely to draw from either their present and past friends and professionals for care giving.

All of these methods are just outlooks though on how and why care giving is given the way that it is. It is also an outlook as to why this care is given. The relationship between the receivers of care and their past or present marital status, is almost unquestionable. Pending on what the situation is or was for the receiver, the status of relationships to others married or unmarried, is relatable.