Beyond the family: informal support in later life

This paper adopts the position that although the Canadian family is, and will continue to be an important source of support for its older members, there are limitations in its ability to do so. These limitations have to do with demographic and social changes occurring in contemporary society and highlight the importance of looking to alternative sources of support emerging in the literature as significant to people in their later years. These alternative sources of support which have potential importance for health and wellbeing in later life, have to a large extent been neglected by health care providers. It is suggested that health care practitioners expand the notion of family as the unit of care, which is central to their practice, to include sources of support beyond the immediate family.