Caregivers of seriously ill spouses find life improves more when the partner dies: Study

Caregivers of seriously ill spouses find life improves more when the partner dies: Study

OXFORD: For caregivers tending to a seriously ill spouse, quality of life may improve to a greater e..

OXFORD: For caregivers tending to a seriously ill spouse, quality of life may improve to a greater extent if the partner dies than if the partner recovers, a German study suggests.

That paradoxical finding – that life becomes more satisfying when sick partners die than when they recover – may arise from the fact that on average, bereaved caregivers in the study had heavier caregiving burdens, with sicker spouses and more hours spent caring for their loved one until the caregiver role ended, said Laura Langner, a sociology researcher at the University of Oxford and Nuffield College in the UK who led the research.

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"Caregivers whose partner recovered were largely unaffected in their life satisfaction, unless the burden in terms of weekday care, errands and housework hours or severity of spousal disease that was lifted off their shoulders was similarly high, in which case they also became similarly more satisfied with their lives upon recovery of their spouse," Langner said by email.

Caregivers in the study were tending to a sick spouse who required constant care or assistance with daily tasks like bathing, dressing and eating. Over four years of follow-up, 152 spouses died and 112 recovered from their illness.

The level of care needed for dying partners was significantly higher than for spouses who recovered.

Caregivers of partners who died spent roughly twice as many hours providing unpaid care on weekdays as caregivers of partners who recovered.

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Only 28 per cent of those whose partner recovered had to spend seven or more hours a day providing care, doing errands, and handling housework, compared with 71 per cent of caregivers whose partners died.

After a death, caregivers experienced marked improvements in life satisfaction from one to two years after they were widowed that were not mirrored by the experiences of caregivers following the recovery of an ill partner or spouse.

The study wasn't designed to prove whether or how caregiving for a partner or spouse impacts quality of life or life satisfaction, or how this might shift with death or recovery of the patient.

And results from Germany, where caregivers receive some financial support, may not reflect what would happen elsewhere in

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