Stress-Related Cognitive Dysfunction in Dementia Caregivers

Oken, Barry; Fonareva, Irina; Wahbeh, Helané

doi:10.1177/0891988711422524

Cited by 97 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(94 reference statements)

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“…Oken et al (2011) found that, when compared to non-caregiving controls, dementia caregivers performed significantly worse on cognitive tasks and mediation analysis revealed that impaired sleep was the sole mediator of impaired cognitive performance.…”

Section: Meditation-based Interventions For Dementia Caregiversmentioning

confidence: 93%

Meditation-based interventions for family caregivers of people with dementia: a review of the empirical literature

Hurley

Patterson

Cooley

2013

Aging & Mental Health

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Objectives: Providing care for a family member with dementia is associated with increased risk of adverse mental health sequelae. Recently, interventions utilising meditation-based techniques have been developed with the aim of reducing psychological distress among dementia caregivers. The present review aimed to critically evaluate the extant empirical literature in order to determine: (1) whether meditation-based interventions can reduce depression among dementia caregivers and (2) whether meditation-based interventions can reduce subjective burden among dementia caregivers. Method: After adhering to inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of eight studies were included in the present review.Methodological quality was assessed using one of two scales dependent on study design.Results: The results provide tentative evidence that meditation-based interventions do indeed improve levels of depression and burden in family dementia caregivers. Conclusions: The review highlighted the strengths and weakness of the studies' methodological designs. While this novel review offers evidence in support of meditation-based interventions to improve the psychological distress of family dementia caregivers, future research should direct efforts to conduct larger scale, more rigorous studies. Clinical implications of the findings are also discussed.

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Section: Meditation-based Interventions For Dementia Caregiversmentioning

confidence: 93%

Meditation-based interventions for family caregivers of people with dementia: a review of the empirical literature

Hurley

Patterson

Cooley

2013

Aging & Mental Health

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“…Results and complete methods for these trials are reported elsewhere. [27][28][29][30] Methods relevant to this analysis are included here. The first trial (referred to as MB III by the original lab for Mind-Body trial 3) was a 3-arm randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation in healthy adults, aged 50 to 85, who are caregivers for people with dementia.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expectancy Effect in Three Mind-Body Clinical Trials

Hicks

Hanes

Wahbeh

2016

J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med

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Expectancy, arguably the prime component of the placebo effect, has been shown to significantly modify the effects of many treatments. Furthermore, various forms of mind-body interventions have demonstrated effective improvements in outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between pretreatment expectations and symptom reduction in a secondary analysis of 3 mind-body intervention programs. An adjusted correlation and regression analysis compared data from a 6-question expectancy questionnaire to a self-reported clinical impression of change score. Only 1 of the 6 expectancy questions in 1 of the 3 studies reached significance (B ¼ 0.087; P ¼ .025). The combined data from all 3 studies did not reveal significant expectancy effects. The positive effects of mindfulness meditation appear to be independent of an expectancy effect. The placebo effect has been thought of as either a nuisance to research or a fascinating and interdisciplinary problem in understanding the healing process.1,2 Evidence indicates that among certain conditions, placebo can have therapeutically significant effects.3 Among these conditions are pain, 12 These contradictory findings cannot be easily dismissed when one considers the difficulties of collecting data on placebo effect from clinical trials. In particular, publication bias against negative results in controlled trials would tend to suppress results showing large effects of placebo control treatments. 13 Despite its variable history, current placebo research is attempting to better understand both the mechanisms that mediate the placebo effect as well as the conditions and populations that are susceptible to it or not, with the ultimate goal of improving standards of care.A useful consideration in understanding the placebo effect is the biocultural model. In that theory, there was once an evolutionary selective pressure to believe in the healing powers of shaman and/or supernatural phenomena.14 This model suggests that making a bigger show (ie, more elaborate procedure) will have a more profound effect resulting in greater optimism and survival. Supporting this theory is the fact that more invasive procedures seem to have greater effect than less invasive, 15 placebo surgery is more effective than placebo pills, capsules are better than tablets, and bigger and brighter colored pills are better than smaller and dull colored pills.16 Furthermore, this model accounts for studies that demonstrate that longer and more empathetic personal interactions with health professionals giving a placebo treatment produce a larger placebo response when compared to the same placebo treatment with minimal interaction.11 This is known as the Hawthorne effect and may account for smaller studies with fewer participants reporting greater placebo response than larger studies and why study participants may exhibit response bias, which is a tendency to self-report better results because of psychosocial expectations.17 While a detailed review of the physiological role of the placebo...

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“…More recently, researchers have considered whether the stresses associated with providing dementia care might also impact on CG's own cognitive functioning (Fonareva and Oken, 2014). Several studies have reported that CGs have poorer performance than NCGs on cognitive domains such as processing speed (de Vugt et al, 2006;Oken et al, 2011;Vitaliano et al, 2009), working memory (e.g., Mackenzie et al, 2009), and delayed recall (e.g., de Vugt et al, 2006;Mackenzie et al, 2009). Furthermore, a population-based study on more than a thousand married couples over the age of 65 reported that spouses of people with dementia were 1.62 times more likely to develop incident dementia than individuals whose spouses were dementia free, even after accounting for risk factors such as age, sex, education, socio-economic status and Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype (Norton et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%