Care of Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is one of the irreversible dementias and leads to death. About 10% of people over 60 years and 20% of people over 80 will have Alzheimer's sometime in their lives. In the case of Alzheimer's disease, care can turn into an extremely large and unevenly distributed burden. The burden that caregivers are called upon to lift is particularly high at the physical, psychological, and social levels.

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics and needs of caregivers and even informal ones, that is, patients in the patient's family or friendly environment who voluntarily or unintentionally offer unpaid care to patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The present study was conducted using the Carer Well-Being and Support Questionnaire (CWSv2) at Thessaloniki Psychiatric Hospital between October and December 2019. For the statistical analysis, the SPSS package 23 was used.

Alzheimer-type dementia is a condition with gradual, inevitable, and uncontrollable deterioration. So, it was expected that those involved in the care of these patients would be afraid of what their patient future care would be. Consequently, there is a high correlation coefficient between the two relevant variables (Fisher's Exact Test: 31,426; Sig: 0.007). Caregivers need to be alert at all times in order to fulfill their role and care for their loved one. There is a strong correlation index between the two variables (Fisher's Exact Test: 32,761; Sig: 0.003). The situation of a lack or distorted form of communication between patients and caregivers may also create or exacerbate caregivers' anxiety, causing them feelings of depression and deadlock that is also reflected in the relevant correlation index (Fisher's Exact Test: 30,053; Sig: 0.001). Women were more in need for additional help, with the two variables being marginally statistically significant (Fisher's Exact Test: 5.373; Sig: 0.05).

Taking into account the results, as reflected through the elaboration of the closed and open questions of this tool, new structures and services should be created in order to facilitate caregivers' job.