Do you look for information about dementia? Knowledge of cognitive impairment in older people among their relatives

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Relatives and caregivers receive little information and have poor knowledge about cognitive impairment and dementia. Objective: This study aimed to identify beliefs about cognitive impairment and aging among people who are in contact with older people with and without cognitive impairment, hypothesizing that the fact of being a close relative influences or modifies these beliefs. Methods: Seventy-eight participants were classified into two groups; group 1: relatives of patients with cognitive impairment or dementia from a behavioral neurology outpatient clinic (n1=48); and group 2: relatives of patients without objective cognitive impairment from different services of a geriatric outpatient clinic (n2=30). All subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire containing single choice and true/false questions about causes and risk factors for dementia. Results: Participants were mainly females and first-degree relatives. No statistical differences were observed for age, schooling, or follow-up time between groups. Participants recognized Alzheimer’s disease as the main cause of memory loss in older adults (group 1=34 vs. group 2=15); when asking about sources of information about cognitive impairment, the three more common answers were doctors and health professionals, Internet, and journals/books. Group 1 got higher scores on questions about causes and risk factors for dementia, but no statistical differences were found. Conclusions: Dementia literacy is low even among the people in contact with this syndrome; caring for someone with dementia changes the concepts about memory and aging but only in a small proportion. Educational strategies to deal with misinformation can help to control risk factors and reduce the incidence of dementia.

The knowledge of memory aging questionnaire (KMAQ) in a Brazilian sample: a questionnaire for informants to recognize early signs of dementia

“…In a previous publication 14 , we tried to explain knowledge about dementia among relatives of elderly patients in a more qualitative form. The authors structured a questionnaire with items to explore the aspects such as self-initiative to be informed about dementia, the most common causes of cognitive impairment, and sources of information to get documented about dementia.…”

“…We used two kinds of instruments. The first questionnaire was structured by the authors related to demographic information and general questions about cognitive impairment; these results were commented on elsewhere 14 . The second questionnaire was the KMAQ, the object of study in this research.…”

“…Being developed by Cherry et al at Louisiana State University, the KMAQ is a Yes/No/Don't know questionnaire, containing 28 items, with half of them (14) related to normal cognitive changes in the elderly and the other half (14) asking about non-normative signs in the aging processes that might indicate pathological cognitive impairment (Supplementary material) 11 .…”