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Introduction. The elderly population is growing driven by the increase in life expectancy, which in turn entails an increase in the number of people with chronic diseases such as dementia. The vast majority of people suffering from this illness is assisted by informal caregivers, who play a key role in fulfilling the patients’ needs, promoting the possibility for people with dementia to live in their home environment. The Internet as a support tool in psychoeducational programs can significantly improve accessibility of them, becoming a currently consolidated interactive resource for the training of patients with acute and chronic diseases, and their caregivers. Population and method. A literature search of the Pubmed, PsyINFO, Scopus, SciELO and Psicodoc databases was performed to systematically review those studies related to web-based interventions for informal caregivers of people with dementia or cognitive impairment. Results. On balance, the studies show a significant improvement after the psychoeducational intervention. Specifically, the improvement in caregivers’ wellbeing can be observed in the measures for self-efficacy, anxiety and depression. Conclusions. Online interventions are a promising strategy for the care of people with dementia. It would be advisable to perform further randomized trials to assess the reasons for lack of adherence to intervention, as well as usability studies to test the different software programs used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological intervention programs of cognitive behavioral approach to informal caregivers of Alzheimer's patients have been so far, the most used by the effectiveness of their results. The objective of this study is the implementation of the program PIRCA (Resilience Intervention Program for Informal Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients) submitted to monitor changes in subjects after participating in the program. Participants were 10 informal caregivers, who were unpaid, untrained and lived with the patient. A cross-sectional comparative experimental study was designed as a pre-test/post-test type. The results indicated that the scores of the variables with depression which more variable state were: euthymic state, overload and coping strategies such as seeking social support and religion. Thus, it is concluded that intervene resilience responds to an own basic for caregivers as it is present in the personality characteristics of the caregiver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years it has been consistently found that caregivers of relatives with dementia suffer health problems and emotional distress during the caregiving period. However, most studies have focused on this stage, paying scarce attention to the impact of the patient's death on their caregivers and to the emotional process from this moment. We present a systematic review of studies that assess the emotional state and grief in relatives of people with dementia after the death of the patient. Results support the relief hypothesis, given the fact that the caregivers' depressive symptoms decreased after the patient's death. However, some caregivers developed a complicated grief associated with certain characteristics (lower education, lower income, depressive and anxiety symptoms, psychotropic use, burden, and perception of positive aspects of caring). Data show the convenience of applying programs focused on teaching caregivers skills to cope with the loss of the loved one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descriptive cross-sectional, quantitative study, aimed to identify the level of depression in a sample of informal caregivers of Alzheimer's patients, composed of 52 subjects. Consideration was given to the following inclusion criteria: primary informal caregiving, with at least 3 months in the care of the patient, with no financial compensation and taking care of non-institutionalized patients. The Depression Inventory (state / trait)IDER, was applied on the sample; The results of the test show a 46.2% in the scale of total state, and a 51.9% in euthymic state subscale, showing also a high incidence of depression. In full scale of trait, there is a total absence of 76.9%, but in the dysthymia subscale, the trait had an absence of 88.5%, therefore, there is no relevance in terms of the level of depression as a trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine if there exist differences in the nutritional status of patients with dementia according to the type and severity of the disease. Method: In this cross-sectional study we carried out an assessment of the nutritional status (anthropometrical assessment, Mini Nutritional Assessment, Chang's protocol) in 83 institutionalized elderly diagnosed with dementia at evolutionary states of 5, 6, and 7 of GDS (Global Deterioration Scale) and FAST (Functional Assessment Stating). The results were analyzed by the Chi-squared, ANOVA, or Kruskal-Wallis tests, the Scheffé's posteriori contrasts, and the linear trend test. Significance was considered at p < 0.05. Results: The mean age of the patients was 81.22 years. The BMI revealed that 21% of the sample were at risk for malnourishment and 14.5% were malnourished. However, by using the MNA, 56.6% of the patients were at risk for malnourishment and 41% were malnourished. According to the Chang's method, the percentage of malnourished patients was increased to 75.9%. None of these variables showed an association with the type of dementia. A significant association was observed between the evolutionary state of dementia and the BMI (p = 0.004), MNA (p = 0.002 and p = 0.006 for the score and the category, respectively), the muscle circumference of the arm (p = 0.043) and the calf circumference (p = 0.043) but not with the percentage of fat mass nor the nutritional diagnosis established by the Chang's method (degree and type of MN). The linear trend test confirmed that both the MNA and BMI scores and the muscle circumference of the arm and the calf circumference were lower in the more severe dementia states. Conclusion: Irrespective of the type of dementia, the presence of malnourishment in institutionalized elderly increases in parallel to the evolutionary degree of the dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The potential utility of applying a programme for prevention of depression for care providers with significant symptoms of depression was evaluated using a sample of 10 women and 3 men aged 43-82 years (M = 59.9 years; SD = 11.9). The programme consisted of five group sessions. Post-intervention evaluations showed a statistically significant reduction in depressive symptoms (p < .001), social maladjustment (p < .001), burden levels (p < .05), risk of depression (p <.05), and a significant increase in problem-solving skills (p < .001). Risk of depression remained lower than pre-intervention levels at follow-up, performed 12 weeks after the intervention (p < .01). These encouraging results justify further evaluation of the programme using a larger sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Percutaneous gastrostomy feeding tube (PG) may be beneficial in some patients, in others such as advanced dementia or rapidly progressive diseases its value is being questioned. Patient selection is important to identify those who will benefit from PG. This study aims to identify patients factors that may help in patient selection for PG. To analyse the characteristics of this patient's cohort and to describe the immediate complications of the procedure that we have defined as the ones happened in the first 30 days. To compare the two patient's group -with and without--immediate complications, non-parametric tests were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dementia is a disease that affects not only the patient but also the patients caregiver, who has the greatest responsibility in this task. There are different methods of intervention which improve the care quality to the patient and decrease the caregivers burden. This paper has the objective of showing the evaluation of the process and effectiveness of a psychoeducative intervention program in a team of informal caregivers for elderly with dementia who were assisted in the Iberoamerican Center for elder people from 2004 to 2005. The program was designed based on information-gathering participant techniques given by experts and caregivers with its basis on up-date bibliography on the subject. There were ten meetings, once a week, where different topics were analyzed depending on the needs previously identified. A psychosocial caregivers scale was applied to compare differences in socioeconomic and psychological variables before and after the intervention. In general the socioeconomic affectations (mainly short free time and needs not satisfied) decreased, this improvement was not significant pointing out that this kind of intervention is not enough to change the most tangible aspects of the caregiver's life. These results have shown that the psycho-educative program "School of Caregivers" was effective to change the psychological affectations of caregivers but not to decrease the socioeconomic ones, as a result of an old person's care with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revising the published bibliography in the ten latest years on learning how to provide family care to Alzheimer patients is the purpose of this article. A systematic and full revision of literature published at national and international level within the main data bases - Spanish as well as foreign - PubMed, Cuiden, CINAHL, Psyclnfo, EMBASE, Cochrane and IME (CESIC) was done. Later on some other publications which fulfilled the criteria for being included were selected. A manual searching to identify those articles published in Spanish journals, either indexed or non indexed, not found by electronic means, was also considered. Criteria for including certain articles in the searching were as follows: scientific articles, originals, published from January 2007 up to October 2007, written in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French, those focused directly or indirectly in the prediction, description of variables related to learning and educating the family care taker of Alzheimer patients. All bibliography references in connection with the so called topic were taken into consideration. According to the literature revised it was found most of the care takers did not receive a previous education or followed a proper learning course on how to deal with an Alzheimer patient. They learn by themselves in the day-to-day practice, as self-taught, simply performing, doing wrong or doing right. In that learning process care takers receive some sort of help and advice from the own experience of those other family members who have been through a similar situation. It would be necessary to further deepen in qualitative searching methodology within the care taker experiences and in their day-to-day context, close to their difficulties and achievements. The advisable investigation in this area could also be of paramount importance to design new services which will contribute to complement the existing ones, and would be indeed an appropriate way to develop the take carers learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]