Clinical progression of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease and caregiver burden: a 12-month multicenter prospective observational study

Abstract

These findings reinforce previous AD knowledge and add data on the clinical course of advanced stages of AD. Caregiver burden depended more on patients' behavioral alterations than on their functional or cognitive declines; and it was diminished by their patients having higher levels of education and being treated with AD-specific medications. Research into unexplored factors that might reduce caregiver burden, ultimately benefiting both patients and caregivers, is encouraged.

Effectiveness of educational interventions for informal caregivers of individuals with dementia residing in the community: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

“…This yielded an average score of 8.1 points (95% CI 4.1 to 12.3) less for caregivers receiving the intervention compared with those receiving usual care. The SD applied is similar to that observed in an observational study (Agüera‐Ortiz et al ., ) of caregivers of individuals with dementia, which reported an SD of 18.8 on the Zarit Burden Scale.…”

Caregiver burden for informal caregivers of patients with dementia: A systematic review

“…In addition, levels of education among patients with dementia (Agüera‐Ortiz et al. ; Kim et al. ) were recognized as the patient socio‐demographical factor of caregiver burden.…”

Stress-Related Cognitive Dysfunction in Dementia Caregivers

“…We did not control for education and gender in the analyses because of the lack of an effect on the cognitive measures in this small sample and lack of a priori hypotheses, even though education may correlate with stress in this population. 59 The small sample size also limited the ability to statistically explore the potential interactions of education, gender, and the relationship of the caregiver to the person with dementia to the cognitive measures. Dementia caregivers are difficult to recruit for extensive physiological and psychological studies since they already have very demanding time pressures.…”