Male family caregivers are more likely to suppress feelings of depression and mistakenly believe that they are capable of overcoming all the hurdles of caring for people with dementia, the Taiwan Catholic Foundation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia said yesterday.
Cases the foundation cited include a son who had taken care of his mother with dementia for years before strangling her to death in 2012; an elderly man who last year committed suicide along with his wife who had dementia; and another elderly man whose wife had dementia whom he killed before attempting to commit suicide.
The cases were cited by the foundation to demonstrate the predicament of male caregivers, who are less inclined to be honest about their stresses.
These factors may lead to tragedies exemplified by these cases, in which the male caregivers took extreme actions when they were overwhelmed by their burdens.
Teng Shih-shung (鄧世雄), the foundation’s chief executive director, said that of the 1,693 calls the foundation received last year seeking consultations or services, only 30 percent were from men.
Furthermore, only 20 percent of the 117 people who participated last year in the foundation’s care training classes and support groups were male.
The low participation rate shows that male caregivers are less likely to ask for help, Teng said.
In light of the phenomenon, the foundation has published a booklet authored by a professional group with 13 years of experience in caregiving that details the best ways to tackle the most common problems for caregivers of people with dementia.
Foundation director Wang Bow-yin (王寶英) said that under the nation’s 10-year long-term care project, family caregivers can now benefit from support groups and caring skill courses from the government and social welfare groups, as well as home services, daycare services and respite care services, helping to share the burden of care.
Caregivers are not left unaided and in the ethical bind of having to send their loved ones to nursing institutions because they have no other choice, Wang said.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the
RSS