Caregiving and Moral Distress for Family Caregivers during Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

As the global prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease increases, the need to understand family caregiving becomes increasingly pressing. I argue that there is an under-recognized form of caregiving for people with early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This type of caregiving involves, roughly, helping people reason through their values. It arises along with the loss of the capacity for executive functioning. Moreover, it is prone to give rise to moral distress, which is an under-recognized vulnerability in family caregiving. Categories of family caregiving thus need to be expanded, and moral distress needs to be recognized not only in the context of nursing.