Moving through predeath grief: Psychological support for family caregivers of people with dementia

When caring for a family member with dementia, continuous losses and predeath grief can adversely affect the caregivers’ physical and mental health. Interventions for caregivers should therefore also aim at coping with loss and managing predeath grief. It was the objective of the present study to describe sources of grief caregivers report during therapy and to investigate how therapists can support caregivers. Two caregivers who participated in a randomized controlled trial were selected for this case study. Both caregivers received an intervention based on the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy with grief-focused content that consisted of 12 sessions within six months. Three therapy sessions per participant were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results illustrate that both caregivers experienced a loss of companionship with their respective care recipient and ambiguous loss that resulted in intense grief that they found difficult to manage. Therapists responded by supporting the caregivers to acknowledge their losses and identify individual ways to cope with and accept loss and grief. Both caregivers reported higher well-being and an increased ability to manage their grief-related emotions after the therapy ended. The identified intervention strategies fit well into a theoretical framework for grief interventions for dementia caregivers, i.e. the dementia grief model.