Little is known about the service needs for persons caring for individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). In this study, the level of support service need for caregivers of individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease (AD; N=55) and MCI (N=25) was compared to normal controls (NC; N=44). Study partners (i.e., caregivers) completed questionnaires about their service needs and participants' neurobehavioral symptoms, functional abilities, and frailty. Total, social, and mental health service needs were significantly different among the three groups (p<.0001), with MCI and AD caregivers reporting more need for services as compared to the NC group. There was no significant difference between MCI and AD groups for total and social service need. In the MCI group, caregiver's service need was related to neurobehavioral symptoms and frailty, whereas service need among the AD caregivers was related to functional disability and frailty. Caregivers of individuals with MCI are already experiencing a need for increased services comparable to that of individuals caring for AD patients, though the pattern of patient-related factors is different between the two patient groups. These findings suggest possible areas of intervention that could be considered at the earliest stages of memory loss. Key words/phrasesmild cognitive impairment; Alzheimer's disease; service need; support services; caregiver The term Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) has been used to describe the transitional phase between normal functioning and Alzheimer's disease (AD) 1 . According to Petersen and colleagues'1 original criterion, amnestic MCI is diagnosed when there is a subjective memory complaint as well as evidence of objective memory impairment in the context of intact activities of daily living and general intellectual abilities. Peterson2 later broadened the criterion to include two primary subtypes of MCI: amnestic and nonamnestic MCI. The broader definition of MCI acknowledges the possibility of other cognitive complaints or deficits in other areas besides memory. Many studies indicate that MCI progresses to AD at a relatively high rate, from 13-48% over 12-60 months 3 -5 . The cognitive and functional changes associated with the progression to AD as well as the potential for a longer disease course among individuals with MCI likely pose a unique set of challenges for caregivers or family members who provide assistance to or care for these patients. There is extensive literature on care burden by family Although no research exists on what formal support services family members of patients with MCI use, there is some evidence to suggest that spouses of patients with MCI are experiencing increased caregiver burden [13][14] . Garand and her colleagues 14 reported that MCI spouses/ caregivers endorsed an increase in caregiving responsibilities such as greater frequency of errands, more coordination of transportation, and greater management of business affairs and medications. Lifestyle constraints and increase in household responsibilit...

rection among these factors, respectively. Results: There are six factors about caregiver burdens, including psychosocial burden, biological burden, negative thinking; people relationship, the dependence of patients, the ignominy burden. Moreover, there produced affective, tool, and information support factors, respectively, from the demand and satisfaction aspect. The reliability of each factor has greater than 0.6. Pearson Production Moment analysis revealed that psychosocial, biological burden factors were significant correlation with information and tool support factors, respectively. Furthermore, the dependence of dementia patient factor is marked significantly related with affective support factor. However, the negative thinking burden factor is significant negative correlation with information support. Conclusions: Armed with the results of above mentioned, the need of supports, in terms of information, tool, affective, for the caregiver burden of dementia family members is strong and not satisfied. Thus, to bridge the gap of the demand and satisfaction between dementia family members and multiple aspects supports is urgent.Background: Art Therapy is a human service profession. It offers opportunities to explore the problems and the personal potentialities by means of verbal and non-verbal expression and develop physical, cognitive, and emotional resources as well as the learning abilities through therapeutic experiences with several kinds of artistic languages. The use of Art Therapy suggests that the creative process can be a means of patients to reconcile emotional problems and facilitate the autoperception and the personal development. The act of caring of a relative with Alzheimer's disease often leads to a caregiver's overload, impacting on his mental and physical health. Consequently, several ways to intervene in the quality of life of the caregivers have been studied, using psychoeducational groups, short Psychoterapy, Art Therapy, and others. Objectives: To use Art therapy resources of gestaltic view in oder to minimize and prevent caregivers' overload of patients with Alzheimer's disease and improve their quality of life. Methods: 10 caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease have been selected and they will be divided into two groups of 5 people and each group is going to do Art therapy for six-month term, weekly, two-hour sessions. Also, the sessions are going to start with proposals of experiences related to the phases of life, emotional and corporal sensations, reflections on the role of the caregiver, following the plastic expression, with the purpose of self-knowledge, expansion of consciouness, search for identity and changes that help the life of the caregiver. Zarit overload scale and the quality of life scale will be applied in the begining and at the end of the sessions of Art therapy. Results: It is in progress. Conclusions: The study is a project and it has not been started officially, therefore, with the evidences in the international literature we are expecting that our study ...