Discussion
ambiguous loss, dementia
First, we would like to discuss the results of the present study within the larger project. These results confirm that the participants benefited from the aftercare offering and were able to integrate what they had learned in the rehab programme into their everyday lives. The collective experience in the group formed a resource and could support caring relatives in learning from each other and thus coping better with their everyday care and associated tasks. According to Yalom [The exchange of information between family carers and learning from each other in the group in telephone-based aftercare groups can also help to build confidence in one's own ability to act and raise awareness of the need to accept external support. Studies show that family carers often make use of support only at a very late stage and take little care of themselves [The offer was well received, and the thematic structure seemed to meet the needs of family carers. Coping with grief and loss in dementia was seen as thematically very relevant by the family carers. In this context, the issue of ambiguous loss was specifically significant, with this phenomenon being described by Pauline Boss [After completion of the intervention, the information provided by the family carers could be used to derive possible adjustments to the content of the aftercare offering. For example, an adaptation of the groups could be conceivable for still-employed carers and would make sense as a preventive support offer. As a nationally representative study showed, the participation of carers in working life decreased with the progression of the dementia and one in five carers gave up their employment in the course of caring due to the high stress levels [Now that we have just discussed the results of the present project internally, we would like to discuss in the following text the significance of the results external to the project and in relation to other study projects. It is certainly the case that many of our findings have already been shown by other studies in this productive research field. For example, a review paper by Lee and colleagues [