Behavioral disorders in dementia patients and their impact on the stress of caregiving relatives: The “arad” questionnaire

Abstract

The questionnaire of the Association for Research and Assistance for Dementia (ARAD) has been formulated to evaluate the relationship between dementia, elderly patients, family and the environment, in order to establish the best approach to improve quality of life and quality of assistance, based on the information collected from the patient-carer dyad. In Bologna, 83 % of the elderly affected by some form of cognitive disorder, live at home, 23 % alone and 52 % has some degree of dependency in activities of daily living (bathing, dressing, toileting, transfer, continence, feeding) versus 8 % in the remaining population. The behavioral and psychological disturbances of dementia, reducing further the independency, are largely responsible for the stress of both the relatives and the professional carers, and also for the institutionalization of demented patients. We analyzed 140 relative caregivers, 36 % of them spouse (mostly women), 39 % child and 25 % other relatives. They ranked the self-perceived, most stressing problems deriving from the behavioral disturbances of the demented family members as follows: sleeping; delusions; aggressivity; agitation; incontinence. Seventy-five % of the relatives had to tackle 3 or more disruptive behaviors at the same time. It is concluded that formal and informal assistance could be improved by better use of pharmaceutical treatments, at least for some symptoms, together with educational, informative and practical courses.