["I never feel free"--women care for the demented husband, father or mother].

The care of elderly relatives with dementia is not any longer a job exclusively done by women nevertheless the care for three quarters of patients is mainly provided by women. This study comprises 70 persons consulting the "Alzheimer Advice Centre" in Leipzig. The aim was to examine the difference between nursing men and women with regard to the way they experience their situation. Independent of sex nursing persons experience their job as a strain. Especially spouses suffer from depressive disorders, states of exhaustion and pain in arms and legs. Nursing spouses differ in their ways of coping with regard to their sex. Wives experience the symptoms of dementia and the limitation of personal freedom as stressing whereas husbands pick out as a central theme the worries about their wives. Men use instrumental support in the nursing situation more often than wives. Altogether mainly women provide care. Sometimes they even take care of several persons. Therefore the resulting strains and limitations are to be regarded as special problems of women.