Modelagem do cuidado no cotidiano familiar na situação crônica por Alzheimer

Abstract

We believe that the family experience of caring needs to be visualized and valued because the family is central in caring for life and health, both in its provision and in the search for professional practices and inputs from different orders. We aim to understand the modeling of family care for the elderly with Alzheimer in a chronic situation. This case study, based on a comprehensive approach using in-depth interview and observation reports on the life story of Sara, 70, who experiences a chronic situation of Alzheimer, and is under the care of her husband Abraão and other family members. This comprehensive approach has led to an open, sensitive, and attentive posture, enabling to grasp the ways in which the family is organized to model the myriad of peculiar care required by Sara throughout her illness, and understand that this way of being cared for is bound thrown history of caring for the family. The movement of comprehensive effort, guided by gradual and intense dives, allowed the revelation of axes of important senses: a) "Life caring for Sara", b) "Marriage relationship", c) "Family structure for the care/daily care for Sara", d)"Acts and attitudes of care performed by Abraão." Such axes supported the understanding of the results of this study: a) "Approach to the life of Sarah and the family: the genogram", which enabled us to be informed about the context of the family experience in caring in an Alzheimer chronic situation. Thus, we brought a brief description of the family and presented a genogram, which shows the family structure and movements toward the care of the elderly. b) "The gift and care in the time lived as a family," allowed to evidence the intense effort made by Abraão and family members in the provision and management of the care for Sara, denoting an affective and laborious means that, within their powers, models daily life in rich increasingly improved care opportunities "in and for" her life, and thus, reviving the circuit of gifting. And c) "The tree structure of family care in the Alzheimer chronic situation" in which we underline the "substrate" of the life caring for Sara before the establishment of the illness as a powerful feeder humus for a myriad of care in the present, keeping her life, given the utter dependence that she has on them. The study showed very personal ways of family care for life 'in and for' over time, in an affectionate and industrious means that permeates the daily life. It emphasizes the importance of health professionals to understand this intimate care performed by the family, considering the ties that unite their loved ones over time, in order to support them with the necessary substrate for that care.