Dementia and cancer: a comparison of spouse caregivers

Can prominent themes that have emerged in dementia caregiving research be extrapolated to caregivers of persons with other chronic illnesses such as cancer? To answer this question, the present study compared 272 spouse caregivers of dementia sufferers with 30 spouse caregivers of cancer victims on multiple indicators of well-being. Group contrasts using MANOVA revealed that dementia caregivers were more adversely affected by their role than cancer caregivers. Illness duration and caregivers' employment status did not help to explain this difference, yet caregiver age was a robust covariate. Specifically, younger spouse caregivers were significantly more compromised than older spouse providers.