ABSTRACT

This chapter outlines the importance of genograms and ecomaps in the longitudinal contact with people living with dementia who live in an intergenerational family context at home. It focuses on the use and development of photographs, genograms, ecomaps and family interviews with Singapore-Chinese families who live together and provides care at-home to a family member who is living with dementia. In terms of land mass, Singapore is a relatively small country in the Asia-Pacific region with a population of 5.1 million people, and growing. The main caring role in a typical intergenerational Chinese family is hierarchical, relational and gender determined. Nowadays, the family caregiving hierarchy of a typical Singapore-Chinese intergenerational family starts with middle-aged children, and then passes to spouses, then to the unmarried daughter with grandchildren largely removed from the demands of filial piety. These quite radical changes in Singapore-Chinese family caregiving structures has led to some unexpected, and unanticipated, social consequences.