Association Between Caregivers’ Burden and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Female Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease with Varying Dementia Severity

Abstract

Purpose This study examined the attributes causing higher burdens for caregivers caring for female patients with Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing a combination of various variables, including demographic data, dementia severity, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Patients and Methods This study included 99 female patients with Alzheimer’s disease who were cared for by the dementia collaborative care team at Changhua Christian Hospital, Taiwan. Neuropsychiatric symptoms used in this study included affections (9 types), behavior symptoms (9 symptoms), and psychological symptoms (3 symptoms). The Apriori algorithm was employed to identify association rules that reveal the relationships among demographic data, dementia severity, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and caregivers’ burden. Results A total of 185 rules were determined, including 51 rules with little or no burden, 108 rules with mild to moderate burden, and 26 rules with moderate to severe burden. The major findings are as follows. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were associated with varying degrees of caregivers’ burden among female patients aged 75 to 84 years with mild dementia. Crying spells and aggression were specifically associated with a moderate to severe burden. Delusion was associated with a mild to moderate and moderate to severe burden. Dysthymia and depression were associated with little or no burden to moderate to severe burden. Conclusion Clinicians can provide early interventions to reduce the burden of caregivers caring for female patients with Alzheimer’s disease and can refer caregivers for timely assistance to reduce their burden.

Using the Apriori Algorithm to Explore Caregivers’ Depression by the Combination of the Patients with Dementia and Their Caregivers

“… 27 , 28 The Apriori algorithm, which has been applied in dementia-related studies, was employed in this study to find statistical associations between any of the attributes by satisfying both minimum support and confidence threshold values along with lift >1. 6 , 7 , 29–33 …”

“… 4–6 Family caregivers played an important role in caring for patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the caregiving load often brought the problems in their mental and physical health. 7 For dementia caregivers, the prevalence of caregivers’ depression ranged from 30%-83%. 8–11 …”

“…[4][5][6] Family caregivers played an important role in caring for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the caregiving load often brought the problems in their mental and physical health. 7 For dementia caregivers, the prevalence of caregivers' depression ranged from 30%-83%. [8][9][10][11] Several factors have been reported to be highly correlated with the caregiver's depression, including female gender, 12 spousal relationship, 13,14 living with the patient, 12,15,16 caregiver's relatively poor health status, 15,16 higher caregiver's distress, [15][16][17] and more behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD).…”

“…27,28 The Apriori algorithm, which has been applied in dementia-related studies, was employed in this study to find statistical associations between any of the attributes by satisfying both minimum support and confidence threshold values along with lift >1. 6,7,[29][30][31][32][33] The definitions of support, confidence, and lift are depicted as below. 6,29,32,33 The support of A ⇒ B calculates the percentage of transactions containing both A and B in the database depicted in Equation ( 1…”

The Effect of Long Term Care Resources on Burdens for Caregiving People Living with Dementia in Taiwan

“…Previous studies have shown that the demographic, health, socioeconomic status 6 , and mental well-being 7 are related to caregivers' burden. Additionally, domestic literature found that the severity of mental and behavioral symptoms in a case predicted a higher care load 8,9 , especially when a person with dementia started to experience delusional hallucinations 10 .…”