Psychoeducation at our Belgian geriatric day hospital

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundWith the rising dementia population, more and more programs have been developed to help caregivers. Being a caregiver for people with dementia is associated with psychological stress and physical ill‐health. Benefits in terms of mental health and depression were generally found for caregiver coping strategies involving problem focus, acceptance and social‐emotional support. These programs, call Psychoeducation have been consistently found to be effective in reducing caregiver distress and are suited for delivery in group format. Support groups, multicomponent interventions and joint engagements by both caregivers and people with dementia were generally found to be beneficial.MethodThis is an observational study concerning simultaneous care of dyads (patient with cognitive impairment and caregiver): the family will benefit from Psychoeducation sessions (4 classes of 3 hours during a year) with a psychologist and neuropsychologist in order to learn to modify their interactions with patients via a better understanding of illnesses and thus prevent family exhaustion. At the same time the patient will be supported by an occupational therapist for activities in order to preserve the maintenance at home as long as possible. Measures (Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale, Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire(NPI‐Q), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Scale of Caregiver’s Quality of life (QoL), Scale of Caregivers’ Precariousness, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) and Lawton Scale) were collected at baseline and post intervention at 12‐months follow‐up.ResultsThe results are ongoing; the preliminary results concerning the caregivers (n=10) and the patients aged from 72 to 88 years old (n=5). We observe a trend decreasing in the caregiver’s emotional charge and a psychic well‐being. Patient assessment is more difficult given the actually small sample size and the advanced degree of dementia.ConclusionThis project made it possible to test the effect of psychoeducation on the helping‐helped dyad allowing on the one hand to make the caregiver expert and on the other hand to try to make the patient as independent as possible in the long term and keeping them in a continuous and transversal link.