Distance Caregiving

Effective communication between caregivers, care recipients, and the health care provider team is crucial to the successful care experience and related health outcomes. As family residential distance increases, individuals who provide distant care to an aging adult often experience stress. Further, individuals are living longer, often with fewer long-term care options available because of smaller family size, reduced retirement savings, or economic hardship. Perhaps most important, caregiving experiences are often transitional times for families, who must communicatively and behaviorally adapt in ways that enable them to manage stressful family changes and emerge resilient and emotionally intact. Competent communication [Page 366]is thus particularly crucial in the context of long distance caregiving (LDC), as research indicates a link among family communication, health, and adjustment to diseases such ...