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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Carer burden in relatives of patients with Alzheimer's disease | | Author(s) | Daya Pandita-Gunawardena, Alison Forbes, Cecilia Blomberg |
| Journal title | GM (Geriatric Medicine), vol 39, no 3, March 2009 |
| Pages | pp 171-175 |
| Source | http://www.gerimed.co.uk |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Family care ; Stress ; Advisory services [elderly] ; Evaluation ; Lewisham. |
| Annotation | Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects both the sufferers and their carers. The prolonged demands of caring may have adverse effects on carers' physical and mental health. Reducing carer burden helps to improve the quality of life of both the carer and the patient. Carers often wish for more information, and the authors have compared the effects of "routine" and "enhanced" post-diagnostic counselling on carer burden for carers of patients with newly diagnosed AD treated with cholinesterase inhibitors. 62 patient and carer dyads were identified from the memory clinic at University Hospital, Lewisham. 31 dyads were allocated to each group of routine or enhanced counselling. Patients were reviewed over 6 months, with 3 post-diagnostic visits. Baseline characteristics including Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were measured and Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) scores were collected on each visit. The mean baseline Zarit score was 23.4. There was no significant difference between the initial and final Zarit scores. There was no association between MMSE and Zarit scores. Enhanced counselling took significantly more time than routine counselling. There was no significant difference between the family or GP satisfaction scores between the two groups. Carer burden is an important problem, and ways to reduce it need to be pursued. There was no significant improvement in carer burden or carer satisfaction with enhanced counselling, although it did involve greater time requirements. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-090408235 A |
| Classmark | EA: P6:SJ: QNH: IT: 4C: 82LO |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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