Aging Parents as Caregivers of Mentally Ill Adult Children: An Emerging Social Problem

Abstract

mentally ill adults live with their families, most with aging par-ents, a situation that accentuates the need for residential alterna-tives to home care for deinstitu-tionalizedpatients who will out-live their caregivers. The role of parenting mentally disabled adults may also impose undue stress on elderly persons. Objec-tive and subjective parental bur-den, including fears for the pa-tient’s future, are increased by the mental health system’s failure to offer education, support, train-ing in problem solving, and a collaborative role in discharge planning to family members. So-cialpolicy implications of consid-ering families as primary care-givers include the danger that government will be relieved of responsibilityfor care oftbe men-tally ill, the creation ofa poten-tially at-risk population among aging parents and other family members affected by the stresses of caregiving, and the reduction of the patient’s potential for inde-pendent living. A major social consequence of de-institutionalization has been the discharge of an estimated 65 per-cent of patients in public and pri-vate mental hospitals to their fam-ilies (1). Although this figure in-cludes all types of patients, a Dr. Lefley is professor in the department of psychiatry at th