Caregivers’ resilience is independent from the clinical symptoms of dementia

Abstract

Resilience is the capacity for successful adaptation when faced with the stress of adversity. We aimed to investigate the relationship between caregivers’ resilience and the sociodemographic and clinical factors of people with dementia. Cross-sectional assessment of 58 people with dementia and their caregiver dyads showed that most caregivers were female adult children. The caregivers reported moderate to higher levels of resilience, lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms and moderate levels of burden. Resilience was not related to the caregiver’s gender (p = 0.883), nor clinical (p = 0.807) or emotional problems (p = 0.420). The regression showed that resilience was related to the caregiver’s quality of life (p < 0.01) and inversely associated with their depressive symptoms (p < 0.01). There was no relationship between caregivers’ resilience and the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of people with dementia. We can assume that resilience is an individual characteristic. Support groups should also focus on the factors that may increase resilience among caregivers.

Family caregivers of elderly with dementia Relationship between religiosity, resilience, quality of life and burden

“…The data from this study confirmed predominance of female family caregivers and of spouses or daughters, corroborating the literature findings showing that care and protection are historically and culturally attributed to women. 4 , 9 , 27 …”

“… 6 , 8 , 28 , 29 Neuropsychiatric disorders are among the main causes of stress, burden and depression of caregivers. 9 Caregivers of individuals with dementia report more emotional, physical, and financial problems than other caregivers and have an increased risk of mortality. 6 , 29 …”

“…Similarly to some studies, we found no relationship between the QoL of the family caregivers and age, education, severity of dementia (CDR) or presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in the elderly with dementia. 9 , 26 , 28 However, worst cognitive performance (Clock-Drawing Test) was associated with worse perceived QoL by the family caregiver, which suggests that progressive cognitive impairment in dementia can generate demands that renders the task of caring more complex, with consequent deterioration of the caregiver’s QoL. Studies indicate that cognitive impairment is a predictive factor for emotional exhaustion, burden, depression, and impairment of QoL of caregivers.…”

“… 6 - 8 Studies suggest that impairment of quality of life (QoL), increased burden and occurrence of depression may be high in dementia caregivers, factors which are frequently related to aspects of the disease such as worsening of cognitive impairment, occurrence of neuropsychiatric disorders as well as impairment of basic activities of daily living. 6 - 9 …”

In Their Own Words: How Family Carers of People with Dementia Understand Resilience

“…The problems of definition and measurement also plague the literature on resilience in people caring for family members with dementia [ 25 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. The relative infancy of the field also means there is a lack of rigorous, systematic research on the factors that influence resilience in this population.…”