Talk:Caregiver

message: And so I and millions of others in the UK and worldwide will continue to use the word "carer" which at least has the dignity of being enshrined in legislation. Merging "carers" into the much clumsier coining: "voluntary caregivers", given that it is used internationally, was a poor editorial decision, IMHO. Excalibur 01:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: No I didn't,

message: What can we done then about making different entries for each term, especially since they do not mean the same. I work with Caregivers, and I would like to clean this page up (which might help Caregivers find more informations and resources).
TLCSIU 18:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am inclined to agree with Excalibur. We should use the term "carer" as it is the most appropriate term and it is enshrined in UK legislation. --Nicholas 21:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know what provoked Stemonitis to undo all of Excalibur's good work  ? The term 'carer' is the accepted terminology. It is used by most international organisations and it is enshrined in respected UK legislation.--Nicholas 12:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

text: "Enshrined" is a poor choice of word. "Used" would be more appropriate. --Stemonitis 15:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

text: "Used" is absolutely fine by me. Carers is certainly used and recognised internationally. Caregivers isn't. It's really that simple, isnt it? Let's use another analogy: The difference between the use of the two words by academics and carers is like the difference between eggs and bacon: whilst the chicken is interested, the pig is committed. As for me, I'm a carer, I'm definitely not a caregiver. How would you feel if I referred to entomologists as entymologists? You would probably be mortified. OK, well that's how I feel when you amend my very well-informed edits. I agree much more work is needed on the article, but let's at least agree the name of it first, then get stuck in to the finer detail. Excalibur 23:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name was agreed upon in a previous AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carers), and Wikipedia prefers singular titles anyway (which would mean a move to Carer). We also have WP:ENGVAR, which prefers the earlier or established title of a page when that page deals with topics relevant to people who speak different dialects around the world. In this type of situation, the name should not be changed to accord with personal preference, and should decidedly not be done unilaterally. If you would like the page to be moved, please create a discussion space here and then list the page with a link to the discussion in the "Other proposals" section at Wikipedia:Requested moves. There is no evidence of a consensus as of yet. Dekimasuよ! 00:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Arigato Gozaimas Dekimasu. With the greatest respect, I disagree profoundly. I am a carer. I have been a carer, and a carers activist for 18 years. I know what I am talking about. What are your own caring credentials? To attain a concensus we would need several hundred other carers involved in this discussion. I am simply not prepared to let ignorant people who have not cared for others determine this issue without coming up with any proper arguments. The word "caregiver" is not owned by carers internationally, and is virtually unknown outside of the USA. I have written around 90% of this page so far...whilst you have been silent and contributed virtually nothing. The international community supports the idea that carers can define their collective identity with this word carers..it belongs to us, and not you. There are around 1 billion carers in the world. We have a collective identity, and we have spent the last 40 years fighting for it. You disagree? OK, first point is what are your own personal experiences of caring? Let's talk by all means..from the basis of experience and the facts, not thin air.Excalibur 01:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I do actually have an alternative suggestion: keep both pages and let them go their own way for a while rather than getting involved in these rather silly tiffs. There are far more important arguments on Wikipedia, like which minor topographical pimples should be called marilyns. In time one usuage will thrive, whilst the other shrinks. Let the Americans do their own thing, and the rest of the world do theirs. I say TomAHtoe and you say TomAYto? We can always provide a handy hyperlink in case the two sides decide to talk to each other over the pond. Maybe the two concepts of social identity are actually very different...we are all socialists over here, y'know? Carer is dictionary definition: carers is a movement: "And you can't take that away from us". Chill out, y'all. Excalibur 01:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are allowed to strenuously object to the name of the article, but please respect the rules of engagement on Wikipedia. Per Wikipedia:Content forking, the pages should not exist in parallel. You note that I have not personally contributed to the article. That is correct; I am a neutral observer trying to make sure that what goes on here reflects a neutral point of view. Consensus is determined by the considered judgments of Wikipedia editors. A move that has been objected to, as this one has, cannot be considered uncontroversial and should not be performed unilaterally, or by a single editor who claims to represent a billion potential editors. If you can present a valid case in a move proposal as to why the page should be moved, you will see the views of other Wikipedia editors coalesce around your position. If you continue to move the page on the grounds of special claims and without considering the input of other editors, there won't be any progress here. Dekimasuよ! 02:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

text:  The primary rules appear to me to be "edit boldly", and that's what I am doing, on the basis of my own knowledge and expertise in this subject. I am satisfied that I have already put strong and convincing arguments that the word carers is universally accepted by international organisations and the word caregivers is not, but my edits are consistently being reverted by people who appear to have no knowledge of the topic or to have even read the article itself. I think the onus is rather on those who wish to revert my edits to prove that the word caregiver is acceptable and universal, not the other way around. This they have signally failed to do. I have little time for getting involved in niceties, and I'm getting bored reversing this article. I found it in a mess and made some major, sensible and well-informed improvements, now frankly I am, wondering why I even bothered.Excalibur 23:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caregiver vs. Carer 

message: Hi, I just wanted to comment on a few things on the caregiver page.  There is very little in the way of research into caregiving, my PhD focuses on informal caregiver (the term largely employed by researchers across the world for family caregivers) and I was wondering whether it would be appropriate to expand this page to include some of this research.  There is a very large literature regarding caregiving in many different illness groups (just put caregiving into google scholar and see what I mean).  Sorry if this is in an inappropriate place but I am new to wikipedia (never had enough time until I started writing up and procrastinating :)) and wouldn't have felt comfortable just editing the page. 82.42.129.176 (talk) 14:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to edit as much as you like/can. I'm sure you'll be able to make a valuable contribution. However, as evidence by the above discussions, this area is a minefield and I'd be a little less certain than you appear to be about the most appropriate/precise terminology. Personally, I'd never heard the term 'caregiver' till I encountered it on Wikipedia. It is not widely used 'across the world'. The term that is most certainly used throughout the UK is 'carer'. The portmanteau 'caregiver' gives the impression of reciprocity in the caring relationship, i.e. to 'give' something suggests a freedom of choice - as though both the carer and the 'cared-for' (disabled people are not 'ill') have entered into a mutually agreed contract over the terms of their relationship. When, in actuality, the carer/cared-for relationship is often a default relationship because in most cases there is not enough financial support available for proper choices to be made. --Nicholas (talk) 09:02, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't want to dampen your enthusiasm for editing. You should of course be bold in your contributions. I look forward to reading the results of your literature search. However, as the above discussion suggests, there are several studies that refer to 'carers' and there are several others that refer to 'carergivers'. We're still to find any detailed analysis that compares the meaning of two terms (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Until we find a source that does explicitly this, or persuasively refutes one definition over another, then I imagine the discussions of the sort happening above will continue. Can you assist us in this respect? What literature are you referring to when you say that caregivers is the term preferred by researchers across the world? This issue needs closure once and for all. Nicholas (talk) 15:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Caregiving' or 'carer' in literature

message: I would like to add a page for spousal caregivers, as a separate, distinct category of family (voluntary) caregivers. I just added a link to the Well Spouse Association, http://wellspouse.org, of which I am the President. I hope it is not conflict of interest for me or for one of our people to write a page on spousal caregiving. Spousal caregiving is separate from other forms of family caregiving, because of the more intense and intimate nature of the relationship between the two family members. There is also a general perception of an elderly couple, one looking after the other, with a terminal illness. We would be writing about younger couples, from their 20's on up, in which one person has a chronic illness or disability that requires some measures of care, increasingly involved, by the other.
We are the only group in North America that is devoted to the support of all spousal caregivers, but I would include links to groups such as Bipolar Significant Others, or Young Cancer Spouses.
Could I please have comment on this? My name is Richard Anderson, my EM is richard@wellspouse.org
Wellspouse 20:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spousal caregivers 

message: I'm not sure if this will be a welcomed addition to this article; however, I think this can greatly help and affect all caregivers and caregiving organizations globally.  There are a few "medical social networking" websites that offer services to caregivers by a means of a virtual community.  One organization in particular called CareFlash.com actually teams up with organizations and will give $ to the organization for each person who creates an account.  It has utilities like a patient's calendar, 3D animations and scientific explanations  on thousands of conditions, public forums, resources for caregivers, ability to post pictures, has a "help" tab, etc... and it's compatibale to Facebook as far as social networking. Anyway, In the case that caregivers and non-profit organizations that support caregivers would view wikipedia... this could be a great resource for them.  The other two medical social networking sites that I know of do not give back to the organization and don't  offer the same utilities, but they are Carepages.com and caringbridge.com.  What do you think?   Thanks, Klostermankl (talk) 02:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resource for Caregivers  

message: How is a carer any different from a nurse or au pair? Anwar (talk) 16:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is about the practice of providing care for one's ill or incapacitated relatives, friends, etc. on an unpaid basis.  Au Pairs are paid to look after (usually healthy) children.  Nurses are also professionals.  Franzeska (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, I've removed both terms from the see-also list.  --CliffC (talk) 15:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nurse/Au Pair 

message: I was about to expand Caregiving and dementia to cover other degenerative conditions when I noticed a previous comment suggesting a merger, that article covers aspects of caregiving that would benefit this article, and in some ways are applicable to caregiving in general, and I think the merger will produce a stronger article than the two seperate articles. L∴V 18:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger proposal

message: ...because the caregiving and dementia article has too much information and citations on its own for an effective merge. Also, in my opinion, it works just fine for these different types of caregiving to be (somewhat) broken down into individual articles. It doesn't appear to make anything redundant, at least.
If anyone has an objection to my removal of the merge proposal on this page, feel free to raise it. That said, please don't simply revert the page to its previous version. We need to work hard to improve pages relevant to the Disability project on wikipedia. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 02:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  not going to merge "caregiving and dementia" into this article 

message: Hello everyone, we are a small group that worked on updating this page for a class project. We added the sections on Italy, Ukraine, China,and Taiwan in the section for Caregivers Internationally. Also, in the Organization section  we included the Taiwan and Ukraine section, and in the caregiver respite section we added the Caregiver Gain and Taking Care of the Caregiver parts. We also updated some citations, fixed some grammatical errors, replaced some words, and reorganized the page. Let us know what you all think!
Thanks!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Natalya19m (talk • contribs) 17:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated Caregiver Page

message: The opening line of this article uses the online Free Dictionary as a reference and says, "... is an unpaid or paid relative or friend of a disabled individual".  I don't find those qualifications to be supported by this dictionary or any other.  A caregiver is not limited to friends or relatives and the person receiving the assistance does not have to be "disabled" rather than just ill.  The Free Dictionary is not actually a dictionary but rather a search page quoting other online references.  One of the three quoted gives examples of caregivers which may not be completely general, but includes medical personnel.  The other two simply indicate the caregiver is "a person".  None of the three definitions limit the recipient to a disabled person.  Two specifically include a "sick" person and the third only lists that person as "vulnerable".  
So the phrase used is *not* supported by the reference given and I can find no basis elsewhere to include these qualifications.  I suggest the phrase be changed to, "... is a paid or unpaid person providing care to a sick or disabled individual".
PS To fenlg who has no tilde on his/her keyboard, just click the link that says, "Sign your posts on talk pages:".  It will append the tildes where your text cursor is pointing.  :)
Gnuarm (talk) 20:45, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Inaccurate Opening Line

message: I proposed a move at Talk:Caregiving for that article to be disambiguated to Caregiving (sociology) or any other term. Comment if you like.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Notice of move discussion at other article

message: I just moved "Caregiving" to Caring in intimate relationships as described at Talk:Caring_in_intimate_relationships#Moved_article. I then made "Caregiving" redirect to this article, "Caregiver". All but one link at Special:WhatLinksHere/Caregiving were already referring to the concept here at this article and not at that other article, so now all of those links are fixed and properly piped to the intended article.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved "caregiving"

message: I have this paper document published by my employer and backed by a range of medical specialty organizations. It is called "Advice for caregivers". I am using it as a basis for listing common issues which caregivers face. Right now, I am citing medical organizations which often say "patients often face these issues" but this paper document which I am not currently citing says "... and these issues are the kind of things that the caregiver can address better than anyone else." The document is not currently online, but when it goes online, I will link it here and tie all of these issues more closely with the concept of caregiving, which is not obvious and explicit in the citations I am currently using.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Common issues reference

message: I have had difficulty finding a source which defined the concept of "caring" or "caregiving". Practically all sources take it for granted that the word does not need to be defined. When it is defined, it is usually only defined in a specific context around some particular medical condition, and not generally. For whatever reason, organizations, textbooks and training guides, and research articles all seem to presume this is a familiar concept. I think the concept is not trivial.
I am fond of Dorling Kindersley books because they explain fundamental concepts clearly and in an introductory way. I am using this as a source of information for developing this article.
*
This book is about 200 pages long and is the best introduction to the topic I found. I considered using textbooks which are used in certification classes for caregivers, but I found those to be too practical and more of "how to" guides, whereas this Dorling Kindersley book is a presentation of theory and concepts. I want to share the chapter list here to give some idea of this book's contents because I want to well establish that this book is a reliable source.
#Becoming a caregiver
#Making changes to the home
#Diet and health
#Social and mental well-being
#Maintaining and aiding mobility
#Comfort in bed
#Personal care
#Day-today nursing
#First aid emergencies
#End-of-life care
It is my opinion that in each of these sections, concepts are presented and defined in a way that would be appropriate for this Wikipedia article to model.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Defining the concept

message: By all accounts caregiving is a significant economic sector. The value of unpaid caregiving is especially considered in the literature.
What I do not immediately see is any source discussing the international value of caregiving. Lots of sources talk about this in local populations or at the country level, but I do not see who has written the general paper or book on the economics of the practice.
I just started an economics section in this article. The caregiving by country article has more information specific to countries. If anyone finds a general source then please share.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Economics

message: I just moved a lot of content to caregiver stress and gave an explanation at on the talk page there.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content moved to "caregiver stress" 

message: The "further reading" section contained a lot of recommendations so I cut it. I am unfamiliar with all of these sources, so I am putting them here to archive them. I moved sources here for any of the following reasons: more than 30 years old, targets a certain geographical region, targets only caring for a certain disease, incomplete citation, and for one book for being a memoir instead of a general information source.
* Judith M. Ashley,(2007) Into The Silence: The Power of Stillness in Living and Dying. 194 pp.  A Memoir. iUniverse.
* Frank A. Fuerst, (2007) Alzheimer's Care with Dignity, Headline Books.
* Tim Cook (2007) The History of the Carers' Movement, Carers UK. 
* National Council for the Single Woman and Her Dependants, Roxane Arnold, and Olive Chandler (1974) Feminine Singular: Triumphs and Tribulations of the Single Woman: An Anthology. London: Femina Books.  OCLC 1230000
* John Norman Agate (1979) Taking Care of Old People at Home, Unwin Paperbacks, London, 61.50, 159 pp.  OCLC 12468034
* J.A. Muir Gray, Heather McKenzie (1980) Take Care of Your Elderly Relative, George Allen and Unwin, London, g5.95, 202 pp.  OCLC 6943192
* Tim Dartington (1980) Family Care of Old People, Souvenir Press, London, 23.95, 159 pp.  OCLC 59798959
* Gillespie, A., Murphy, J., & Place, M. (2010). Divergences of perspective between people with aphasia and their family caregivers. Aphasiology, 24(12), 1559-1575.
* Linda S. Thompson, A Caregivers Journey-You Are Not Alone
* Scottish Executive (2006) The Future of Unpaid Care in Scotland, Edinburgh, Scottish Executive.
* G. Parker (1990) With This Body: Caring and Disability in Marriage, Buckingham, Open University Press.
* Wang, Huali., Xiong, Qian., Levokoff, E Sue., Yu, Xin. (2009). Social support, health service use and mental health among caregivers of the elderly in rural China. Aging International, 35 (1): 72-84.
* Ge, Cuixia., Yang, Xiaoshi, Fu, Jialiang., Chang, Ying., Wei, Jiansi., Zhang, Fengjiao., Nutiffa, E Attach., Wang Lie. (2011). Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of caregiver reaction assessment. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. (65): 254-263.
* Carolyn Brent (2004) Why Wait? The Baby Boomers Guide to Preparing Emotionally, Financially, and Legally for a Parent’s Death in 2011]. 
 Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formerly suggested sources 

message: I have started a new article about dignity of risk, a significant concept in the field of caregiving. Please feel free to contribute to the improvement and expansion of the article. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:41, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article [[Dignity of risk]]