What causes grief in dementia caregivers?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease in the world. Most AD patients become dependent on their relatives, i.e. family caregivers. Providing care to a person with AD influences caregiver's life and leads to feelings of grief, which often precede caregiver depression. The purpose of the article was to evaluate the Meuser and Marwit Caregiver Grief Inventory (MM-CGI-50) for use in Polish family caregivers and to find out determinants of grief of family caregivers of AD individuals living in Poland. A sample of 151 spouse and adult child caregivers of community-dwelling AD patients (95 females and 56 males) was interviewed to determine the influence of such factors as caregiver's age, gender, family relation to the care recipient (CR) and caregiving-related changes in caregiver's working time, leisure time and material status to find out the impact of caregiving role on intensity of caregiver grief. Caregiver grief was measured by means of MM-CGI-50. Additionally, carers were administered a questionnaire including patient's and caregiver's demographics. Also, CR's dementia assessment was informant-based and determined with investigator-administered clinical dementia rating (CDR) scale. Of all analyzed factors, only caregiver's informant dementia rating significantly influenced caregiver grief. To conclude, the effect of caregiver's age, gender, family relation to the CR and caregiving-related changes in caregiver's working time; leisure time and material status could not be found. To add, MM-CGI-50 can be effectively used to assess grief in Polish family caregivers of AD patients.