The dangers of losing strength: physical ageing and family care in the era of AIDS, northwest Tanzania

As a result of HIV/AIDS older men and women in northwest Tanzania bear a growing responsibility within families: caring at length for dying patients or patients on ARV medicine, as well as raising orphaned children. These care giving tasks increase at a time when physical strength is declining and family care for older men and women is disintegrating as a result of migration, declining economic capacity and HIV/AIDS - all processes which lead to the growing nuclearization of the family. In this paper I show that while the family remains the main care giving unit, relations within the family have become severely strained and that there should be more attention for the physical ageing process of older caregivers.