Last updated 09/07/24: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2008
The information reported here comes from a study of a random sample of adult deaths registered in 1987. Interviews were sought with the person who could tell us most about the last twelve months in the life of the person who died; 639 people took part in the study. Just under one in ten of the people who died had attended a day centre in their final year. Attenders were more likely to be aged 75 or over at death, to be women and to have been living alone. They were also more likely to have suffered from a number of long-term symptoms and restrictions. According to respondents it would have been helpful if a further 11% of those who died had attended a day centre in the last year of their lives. The most often stated reason for this was that it would have given the carer a break from the demands of caring. But the most often given reason why the person who died had not attended a day centre was that they had not wanted to – an indication of some conflict between family and friends providing care and those they cared for
1 Secretaries of State for Health, Social Security, Wales and Scotland, Caring for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond. HMSO, London, 989.Google Scholar
2 Tester, , Susan, , Caring by Day. Centre for Policy on Ageing, London, 1989.Google Scholar
3 Tuffnel, G. and Warburton, R. W., Elderly users of day care: a census of old people attending grade ‘A’ day centres in Cambridgeshire. Clearing Housefor Local Authority Social Services Research, 6 (1981), 27–36.Google Scholar
4 Brocklehurst, J. C. and Tucker, J. S., Progress in Geriatric Day Care. King's Fund, London, 1980.Google Scholar
5 Fennel, G., Day Centres for the Elderly: An Overview of Three Studies. School of Economic and Social Studies, University of East Anglia, 1979Google Scholar
6 Donaldson, C., Wright, K. G., Maynard, A. K., Hamill, J. D. and Sutcliffe, E., Day hospitals for the elderly: utilisation and performance. Community Medicine, 9 (1987), 55–61.Google ScholarPubMed
7 Wadsworth, M. E. J., Sinclair, S. and Wirz, H. M., A geriatric day hospital and its system of care. Social Science and Medicine, 6 (1972), 507–525.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
8 Cartwright, , Ann, and Seale, , Clive, (1972), The Natural History of a Survey: An Account of the Methodological Issues Encountered in a Study of Life Before Death. King's Fund, London, 1990.Google Scholar
9 Qureshi, , Hazel, and Walker, , Alan, , The Caring Relationship: Elderly People and Their Families. MacMillan Education Ltd, London, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Cartwright, A., Medicine taking by people aged 65 or more. British Medical Bulletin, 46 (1990), 63–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
11 Seale, , Clive, , Caring for people who die: the experience of family and friends. Ageing and Society, 10 (1990), 413–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Seale, , Clive, , Death from cancer and death from other causes: the relevance of the hospice approach. Palliative Medicine, 5 (1991), 12–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Lewis, , Jane, and Meredith, , Barbara, , Contested territory in informal care. In Jefferys, M. (ed.) Growing Old in the Twentieth Century. Routledge, London and New York, 1989.Google Scholar
14 Levin, E., Sinclair, I. A. C. and Gorbach, P., Supporters of Confused Elderly Persons at Home. National Institute of Social Work, London, 1983.Google Scholar
15 Cartwright, A., The balance of care between hospitals and the community: the perceptions of general practitioners, hospital consultants, community nurses and relatives of care for the dying. British Journal of General Practice, 41 (1991), 271–274.Google ScholarPubMed
