| Summary: | Abstract Keywords: elderly people, dementia, person-centered care and relatives. Title: To visit someone who is no longer there Author: Ulrika Stenmarck As the number of elderly people increase, the amount of people suffering from age-related illnesses is growing. Such a disease is dementia, which today is a priority research area, both nationally and internationally. It has been found that working in a person-centered way and involving the patient’s relative’s is important for the people cared for by the dementia departments. Despite this, research has shown that the support for relatives is inadequate. The purpose of this study is to identify how individual support, in the field of nursing for dementia patients, can be better adapted to support relatives. By interviewing five relatives and four staff members in a nursing home for dementia patients, answers were sought for regarding; what kind of support the relatives need and how staff work to support relatives. The relatives´ responses were analyzed based on the theories concerning crisis processing related to their relatives´ dementia diagnoses. The answers given from the staff were analyzed based on the theories concerning organizational culture The analysis indicates that the goal of crisis processing for relatives should be to “create their new life”, which seems to be a challenge for a staff that is already carrying a large workload. The results indicate that the staff have succeeded in creating a foundation of values that relatives seem to experience as a safe atmosphere. This atmosphere can be interpreted as the most important support for relatives and a necessity for progress in their crisis processing. As a complement to the unit’s staff, external support for the families can be a solution.
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