ABSTRACT
The experience of caring has been documented in a number of ways and in numerous accounts. Those accounts that detail the day-by-day experience of caring for a dependent adult emphasise the emotional as well as the physical load that such caring involves, whether or not the dependant lives with the carer. The state of health of the elderly relative for whom one is caring, is critical to the whole caring experience. As a study of the experience of caring, there is no escaping the significance for that experience of the particular arrangements that have been made in each instance for the person who is the recipient of care. The very fact of being interviewed about their caring experience prompted review and reassessment of the ways in which that experience had shaped and constrained the lives of these carers.
