The Doctor-Caregiver Relationship: Managing the Care of Family Members with Alzheimer's Disease

When patients cannot manage their medical affairs, a doctor-caregiver relationship emerges. We used focus groups to investigate this relationship in two studies with caregivers for a spouse or parent with cognitive impairments. Qualitative content analyses showed that negative mentions of doctors predominated over positive mentions, especially in discussions of community doctors rather than specialists. Caregivers were generally negative in their mentions of doctors' attitudes, and of medical and nonmedical advice. The data also pointed to the importance of cognitive impairment as a specific condition and the necessity of seeing the doctor-caregiver relationship as extending beyond face-to-face medical encounters.