A widespread bias exists among legal, medical, and social service professionals that the appropriate placement for elderly individuals with cognitive impairment (dementia) is a nursing home. Two major reasons for institutionalization are to remove the patient from a potentially harmful situation and to relieve the family of the burden of care.…

Burden of caregivers was less when more visits were paid to the dementia patient by other relatives. Severity of behavioral problems was not associated with higher levels of burden. The results suggest the importance of providing support to caregivers as a critical step in community care. (Author)

Research on personality and aging has been limited by several factors, including nomethetic assumptions about traits; overreliance on morale scales as measures of adaptation; and the confounding of cohort, time of measurement and age effects. An idiographic approach, which focuses on traits that individuals subjectively feel as important, may help…