This study was done to investigate the lives of the daughters- in- law caring for parents with dementia and participate in their lives through having quality time with them. Data were collected by depth interviews and interpreted through the hermeneutic circle as follows. These daughters-in-law have conflict between social custom and subjective self. They had ambivalence toward their demented partents-in- law and were fighting a battle between rationality and emotions in their mind. These daughters-in law and mothers-in- law did not get along and the parents' dementia aggravated the relationships. They were alienated from their family by the parents with dementia. The indifference of their family especially their husbands, made these subjects live in misery. They cared for the demented mother-in-law with hatred. Even though they had this yoke, there daughters- in-law were not able to throw off the shackles of convention.

This study was performed to analyse the tendency of the self-care studies, to investigate the variables related to self-care, which could be applied for the data establishing the theory of self-care. to accomplish the objectives of this study, the researchers analyzed 83 studies, available that contained the area of self-care, which was published in local and foreign areas between 1981 and Feb. 1997. The findings of this study are as follows: 1) Studies published in Korea were about twice more than foreign studies. According to the statistics, the number of studies in this study tended to increase year by year. Between 1991 and 1995 were most. Analysis on the subject of this studies showed, that they were most dealt with chronic diseases an adults. 2) The theoretical definition of self-care were most referred to Orem's self-care. For the main concept of studies, self care performance was the most. 3) The correlational study was most often used design and experimental study is tended to increase. The questionnaires were the most often used data collection method. There was lots of different variable measuring technique to evaluate main concepts. 4) In the results of analysis on the propositions related to the self-care performance, a client's education, social support, self-efficacy, and level of knowledge as a causal variable were found. Also, the physiological index improved and quality of life were fond to be significant effective variables.