Family caregiving in dementia.

There are 5.3 million people with Alzheimer’s disease in the US—a number expected to grow as the baby-boomer generation enters old age, with estimates that 7.7 million people will be affected by 2030. From 65 to 75% of dementia patients are cared for at home by family members. According to the 2010 Alzheimer’s Association Facts and Figures report, 10.9 million Americans provide 12.5 billion hours of care per year. In Rhode Island, an estimated 39,138 individuals provide about 44 million hours of care per year. Because dementia involves relentless cognitive deterioration, family caregivers have to manage changing demands and unexpected problem behaviors. Caregivers often sacrifice their own needs. The “caregiver burden” includes both objective aspects of providing care (e.g., time and physical aspects of providing caregiver) and subjective experience of caregiving (e.g., perceptions and emotional reactions to caregiving). Although there are strong correlations between caregiver burden and depression, they are not necessarily the same construct. Our view is that caregiver burden represents a stressor that if not ameliorated will lead to mental health consequences such as depression. In this article, I will review the consequences of caring for an individual with dementia, briefly discuss theoretical models of caregiver stress, highlight the literature on psychosocial interventions for dementia caregivers, and identify future directions for dementia caregiver research.