Exploring Caregiver Challenges And Coping Mechanisms In The Midst Of Covid 19

This paper reports on the the challenges faced and coping strategies employed community-based care providers in a mid sized city in the Pacific Northwest in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic. Researchers from a Palliative Care Institute conducted six online focus groups using the zoom platform. The project aimed at gathering important information on the experiences of caregivers as well as providing a virtual space where caregivers could support each other. A purposive sampling technique was used to gather data where participants were not chosen randomly but because they could best answer the research question. Membership of the focus groups included representatives from skilled nursing facilities, home-care agencies, elder law services, memory-care facilities, adult family homes, medical supply facilities, chaplains and nutritionists. Data gathered from the focus group were transcribed. A constant comparison method of analysis were employed and categories and themes were created from open coded data. Six key themes were identified which included: dealing with the impact of social isolation on caregiver-client relationships, assessing personal risk when dealing with clients living with dementia, facing challenges seeking continuing employment, struggling with social support and self care, using technology for professional and personal support and grappling with the challenges reentering a face to face environment once the pandemic is controlled.. Findings point to the importance developing and sustaining technological innovations that support workforce retention, fostering communication between the larger community, care providers and clients in various care settings and planning for safe reentry into a post Covid world.

Elder Rights in Bangladesh: Critical Reflections on the Elder Law, Policy and Programme

Today’s society tends to glorify youth whereas older persons are often associated with grumpiness or antagonism. But ageing is a fact of life; and demographically, a natural process that inevitably occurs in the human life cycle. But this global trend of demographic aging is laden with a panoply of emerging challenges that push the elder population vulnerable to exploitation, mistreatment, and right violations. Although the elderly in Bangladesh are valued as an asset, not as a burden on society, they are, in reality, less likely to form new friendship; rather, often labeled as ‘aged’ and ‘unproductive’ due to our social construction for age biases that also create dependency eventually.In effect, the elderly face many difficult challenges, i.e. discrimination, homelessness, poverty, discrimination, denial of basic human rights and social services, lack of adequate care and Medicare, or isolation. Besides, the elder’s rights have not yet received the adequate legal attention they deserve. Along with establishing the elderly’s particular vulnerability that requires preferential treatment under elder law, this paper hence attempts to look into the Bangladesh position in the elder law regime, and how the elderly rights are brought in governance and legal practice. After doing so, this paper also uses a searchlight on whether the legal protection mechanisms are adequate, and what measures are imperatives to address the dynamics of the elderly.

Elder Law and Its Justifications: A Hybrid Vision Inspired by Family Law Jurisprudence

This Article calls for a departure from the ‘positivist–professional’ definition of Elder Law. It offers a new definition that demands answers regarding the justifications for this legal area and the normative base that should guide its content. The paper draws on findings from a qualitative study with grown children who have an elderly parent in need. These findings point toward a) a preliminary theoretical framework that justifies a special area of Elder Law, embracing and transcending that of anti-ageist law, and b) the relevance of Family Law jurisprudence as a normative inspiration for this legal area.

A Framework for Theoretical Inquiry into Law and Aging

With populations aging worldwide, the need for appropriate and just public policy related to old age is critical. Elder law scholars can support the creation of such policy by advancing the theoretical understanding of the relationship between law and aging — understanding that can help policymakers identify and prioritize goals, and evaluate potential interventions. This Article aims to provide a framework for this work by distilling the core theoretical questions at the intersection of law and aging. It also challenges common assumptions that could pose a barrier to developing a more robust theory of law and aging. Specifically, it argues that scholarship in this area will be most fruitful if it recognizes that the study and practice of “elder law” are intertwined but not a single unified field, that “preferential” treatment of older adults can be a form of discrimination, and that old age is not a universal human experience.

25 Years of Elder Law: An Integrative and Historical Account of the Field of Law and Aging

Twenty-five years have passed since my first exposure to the field of “elder law.” From a “young” master’s student I have become a law professor and a gerontologist who specializes in law and aging. The journey I have personally experienced in the last quarter-century provided me with some perspective regarding the field of elder law (or, as I prefer to call it, law and aging).In this Article, I try to summarize my experience and share some personal insights on the field. This is naturally a very personal and subjective experience. However, it may be constructive to others in shaping the next twenty-five years of the field. Hence, the goal of this Article is to provide both an integrative description of the developments in the field and some propositions for possible future directions.

Elder law and its subject: the contextualised ageing individual

Elder law is often approached in terms of a ‘body’ of law. In this article, I argue for a contextualised and externalised perspective on the ageing individual as the subject of elder law. Elder law relates to the implications of law as an institutionalisation of society seen through the lens of older persons. The aged subject is a contested and differentiated social construct to be studied in relation to an externalised social ‘problem’ and properly contextualised. Whereas the ageing individual in the context of labour law and anti-discrimination regulation turns out to be remarkably young, the specific history of LGBT persons in society comes to the fore in cases where age intersects with a ground such as sexual orientation. The ‘ageing’ worker must thus be understood in relation to work as the dominant distributive order in society, and in relation to institutions and developments associated with work. Due to the role of age as a traditional social stratifier, the prohibition against age discrimination has been given a weaker format than have prohibitions against other kinds of discrimination, and the ban on ageism has failed to achieve a clear legal status. Deficiencies in the measures taken against age discrimination are also evident in their incapacity to address situations where age intersects with other grounds, resulting in a compartmentalised application and interpretation of discrimination bans, leaving vulnerable sub-groups without protection. In sum, elder law is very much a field in process and – although arguing for the added value of a contextualised perspective – it may for the time being suffice to say that ‘elder law is what elder law researchers do’.

To Legislate Filial Piety: Is the Elderly Rights Law a Panacea?

With the life expectancy being steadily increasing, caring for an ageing population presents a paramount challenge in China. The article explores the traditional value of filial piety which is perceived to underpin social norms and beliefs about caring for aged parents. Apart from state and social institutions, a particular regard is given to the reshaping of relationships between aged persons and their family members. Given filial piety being a core value in Chinese cultures, there is a societal interest in protecting a healthy relationship between parents and children in the twenty-first century. In terms of the relational dimensions of current theories, it remains unclear whether an individual rights-based approach would have traction in the Chinese context, or represents an unintended disseverance from the Chinese traditional core values. More critically, a new law requires adult children to visit their elderly parents regularly. With the ongoing attempts to theorize and reconceptualize elder law across jurisdictions, the research further examines emerging legal issues that have arisen in China, and seeks to ascertain the extent to which the law addresses the above inquiry.