It’s not all happy families...

Melbourne’s Deakin University Families in Later Life Study tracks sons and daughters caring for ageing parents in the community over a year, focusing on the quality of the relationship, which can have a big impact on health outcomes for both.

Research leader Gery Karantzas said aged care had become a major issue for Australia.

“By 2025, families will be expected to provide much of the primary care for ageing parents as the government and care services struggle to meet the welfare needs of our rapidly ageing society,” Associate Professor Karantzas said.

“The care provided to older parents in the community by adult children is significant, currently saving the federal government over $4.4 billion annually.

“But caring for ageing parents comes at a cost. Many adult children report significant carer stress and burnout due to the financial, social and emotional strains.”

Associate Professor Karantzas said the quality of family relationships during the later years of life can exacerbate these strains.

“Family relationships marked by rejection or a sense of inferiority can exacerbate negative outcomes, including problems with immune functioning and increased risk of depression, anxiety and stress.

“There is even preliminary evidence to suggest that relationship strains can exacerbate rates of cognitive decline in both carers and care recipients.”

In contrast, he said family relationships reflecting love and support appeared to decrease these physical and mental health issues.

“It’s as if good family relationships inoculate ageing parents and their sons and daughters from all kinds of physical and emotional problems.”

He hopes to better understand how best to produce these positive outcomes through the study.

“This study is unique in that it tracks the relationship and wellbeing of both the older parent and their sons and daughters, thereby investigating both perspectives,” he said.

“Most aged care studies track either the carer or the care recipient, but not both. But it’s the interaction between the adult child and older parent that is critical in understanding how care is provided, how it’s received, and how parents and children influence one another’s wellbeing.”

Associate Professor Karantzas said early findings showed families suffering relationship strains demonstrated poorer care of older parents.

“This is especially the case when the carer is more distressed,” he said. “The idea that families pull together to help out mum and dad may not represent the reality of ageing families. For some, the stress and strains of caring for an older parent merely widen the cracks that already exist.”

He said the study’s findings would provide crucial ways to support and strengthen family bonds and also assist the future development of services for family caregivers and care recipients.

Families from Melbourne and the Geelong region are needed for the study.