Caregivers need education on available resources to reduce the demands put upon them and to protect patients they are caring for from being put into institutions prematurely, according to researchers at the Hyogo Institute for Aging, Brain and Cognitive Disorders in Japan.

Researchers conducted a study of 211 patients with Alzheimer's disease. The patients included 149 women and 62 men with an average age of 73.

Trained nurses who conducted interviews with the care providers evaluated the burden of the patients' caregivers. The patients' cognitive, functional and psychiatric impairments were also assessed.

The caregivers were given a questionnaire to collect information on the patients' ongoing status, including whether and when they died or were institutionalized, and whether they had used formal social supports such as home care, day care, and respite care services.

A total of 150 Alzheimer's patients were followed for at least one year and 51 of them either died or were institutionalized.

The use of day care and home care services were significant factors in helping to keep the patients from being placed in an institutional setting. Cognitive and functional disturbances but not psychiatric manifestations were significantly linked with either death or institutional placement.

"The caregiver education which decreases the caregiver burden and prompts the usage of the social care services are necessary to protect premature institutionalization," the researchers concluded.

Other sources: Hyogo Institute