Samenvatting

Informal caregivers of the frail elderly often experience the demands placed on them as a heavy burden and a threat to their quality of life. Informal care refers to the unprofessional and unpaid assistance provided by partners, family or close friends. Frail elderly people suffer from age-related problems in different domains of daily functioning, such as physical, psychological and social domains, and are at risk of severe problems in the future, such as falls, hospitalization, disability and death. As a result of the myriad of continuously changing problems and the chronic nature of frailty, providing informal care to these patients often entails increasingly intensive care tasks over a prolonged period of time.