Patient affect and caregiver burden in dementia

Abstract

Background Numerous studies focusing on the burden of caregivers of dementia patients have been published. However, there have been few studies focusing on positive affect as an important factor affecting the caregiver burden, and only a few studies comparing the caregiver burden between different dementia diseases have been reported. Methods Three hundred and thirty‐seven consecutive caregivers of people with dementia participated in this study. The caregiver burden was evaluated by the short version of the Japanese version of the Zarit Burden Interview. Results Positive affect scores had a significant relationship with the scores of the short version of the Zarit Burden Interview. Caregivers for patients with dementia with Lewy bodies or frontotemporal dementia suffered from a greater burden than those for patients with Alzheimer's disease dementia. Conclusions The caregiver burden differed between people caring for patients with different dementia diseases. Positive affect of dementia patients has a significant relationship with caregiver burden, independently from neuropsychiatric symptoms of patients.

Factors associated with caregiving status and caregiver burden for patients with Alzheimer's disease in China

“…For example, the symptoms of dementia often cause physical, emotional, and mental stress [17]. Many studies have explored the in uence factors of caregiver burden, indicating that the burden on caregivers is higher in families with lower income and disease severity [18,19]. At the same time, the burden of patients increases with time [20].…”

“…The scale was translated into Chinese by Yue et al and passed the reliability and validity test. The inventory consists of 24 questions that refer to ve dimensions: time-dependence burden (questions 1-5), developmental burden (questions 6-10), physical burden (questions 11-14), social burden (questions 15-18), and emotional burden (questions [19][20][21][22][23][24]. Each item was graded on a 4-point Likert scale according to the degree of each situation.…”

“…At the same time, the increasing prevalence of AD places a large burden on Chinese society [3]. In China, the average socioeconomic cost of AD per patient per year is US $ 19,144.36 (RMB 122,523). In 2015, the total cost was estimated to be US $167.74 billion [4], a 5.95-fold increase over the previous estimate of US $28.18 billion according to the World Alzheimer Report in 2015.…”

Costs and resource use of community-dwelling patients with Alzheimer’s disease in Japan: 18-month results from the GERAS-J study

“…Given that caregiver informal costs accounted for over half of total societal costs, understanding the contributing factors is important when determining interventions to relieve caregiver burden and reduce costs. Differences in caregiver burden in dementia have been suggested to be due to multiple patient and caregiver attributes [34,35] as well as cultural and country-specific factors that underlie differences in caregiving roles [36], with primary caregivers reporting a higher burden in terms of quality of life, economic burden, and loss of productivity compared with non-primary caregivers [37]. In GERAS-J, disease severity influenced caregiver burden at baseline [12] and at 18 months, which is in line with a prior association reported between greater disease burden and reduced quality of life for both patients and their caregivers in Japan [5].…”

Impact of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms on Caregiver Burden in Patients With Dementia With Lewy Bodies

“…Patients with DLB present with not only cognitive impairment as do patients with ADD, but also various symptoms such as Parkinsonism, visual hallucinations, REM sleep behavioral disorder (RBD), cognitive fluctuation, and depressive mood from early stages onwards (1). Therefore, various factors contribute to deficits in activities of daily living (ADL) (2), and family caregivers experience a high burden (3)(4)(5) in cases of patients with DLB rather than those with ADD, although there is a report that shows no difference in caregiver burden between DLB and ADD (6).…”