Perception of Burden by Caregivers of Dementia Patients and Its Association with Severity of Dementia

Dementia is a brain disease of a chronic or progressive nature marked by disturbance of cortical functions, including memory loss. Role of family caregivers of people with dementia is critical to the quality of life of the care recipients. Improvement in health care services worldwide and longevity has been accompanied by problems and diseases associated with ageing. Assessing the problems faced by the caregivers is becoming an integral part of the management of dementia. Most of the data in this regard is from the western world, studying these issues in developing countries will throw light on the problems faced by the caregivers so as help create strategies to manage these problems effectively. This cross-sectional observational 8-month study used 22 itemsCaregiver Burden scale to assess caregiver burden at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Hospital, Mumbai. Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living was used to assess the patient’s capacity to perform the basic activities and the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory Short, to score the level of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia in the patients. Patients diagnosed with Dementia as per ICD-10 were first identified, family members of these patients who were the primary caregivers of the patients were then selected. With increasing role of non-pharmacological interventions in dementia, nurses have immense scope to assume leadership.