| Summary: | 碩士 === 南開科技大學 === 福祉科技與服務管理所 === 104 === Due to the improvement of medical treatment, public sanitation and living surroundings, the average life span as well as the number of the elderly has risen, which makes Taiwan an aging society. In Taiwan, 77.9% of the elderly who need long-term care are looked after by their family members, which shows that family plays a crucial role in taking care of the elderly. On average, females usually live longer than males；moreover, females often get married to those males who are older than them. Consequently, it is very common that elderly wives take care of their ill spouses. However, the hardship those elderly caregivers face is often neglected and remains unnoticed. The purpose of this study is to understand the daily experiences of the elderly family caregivers and to explore how they get through the hard times in taking care of their ill spouses. Hopefully, the public can pay more attention to those great women. The study adopts qualitative method, using depth interview to collect data from one elderly family caregiver over 80 years old in Yunlin county. The results of the study are as follows：
(1) The reason why the interviewee chose to be a family caregiver is her love and responsibility for her husband, children, and family.
(2) The caring job influences the physical health, psychological health, family system, and social condition of the elderly family caregiver.
(3) How the elderly family caregiver copes with the tough caring job includes external adaption, emotional adaption and recognition adaption.
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