Caring for family with Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease: needs, challenges and satisfaction.

A convenience sample of 40 family members caring for an individual with either Alzheimer's disease (AD) or Parkinson's disease (PD) completed the Caregiver Assistance Measure (CAM) to identify the types of assistance that would be most helpful in caring for a family member at home. The CAM measures three categories or types of assistance: care knowledge and skills, self-care, and resource acquisition. Caregivers also completed open-ended questions about the difficulties and the satisfactions of caregiving. The PD and AD caregivers agreed on the importance of 75% of the assistance items on the CAM. In addition, both groups of caregivers identified issues related to care knowledge and skills and selfcare as the most difficult aspects of caregiving. These findings suggest many caregiver needs may be common across chronic illness populations and provide initial support for the development and testing of standardized interventions for caregivers.