Department of Psychology, Fordham University , Bronx, NY, United States.
Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2021 Mar;28(2):284-307. doi: 10.1080/13825585.2020.1749228. Epub 2020 Apr 9.
Extensive literature exists documenting the relationship between stress and cognition. Caregiving for an individual with Alzheimer's disease can be aunique and chronic stress experience due to the increasing dependency of the care-recipient as the disease progresses. The current study examines the relationship between stress and cognitive performance in 47 dementia caregivers compared to 47 noncaregiver control participants matched on age, gender, and education. Participants completed measures assessing stress (measured via the Perceived Stress Scale) and seven domains of cognition including episodic memory, working memory, executive functioning, attention, visuospatial processing, processing speed, and implicit memory. Results showed that caregivers had poorer performance than non-caregivers on certain measures of episodic memory, working memory, and executive functioning; while no significant differences were observed on measures of attention, visuospatial processing, processing speed, or implicit memory. In addition, when controlling for general stress, caregiver performance on measures of processing speed and visuospatial processing was also poorer than non-caregivers. By controlling for levels of general stress that may not be related to caregiving, these results show that differences in cognitive performance are unlikely to be explained by general stress alone.
大量文献证明了压力与认知之间的关系。由于患者的依赖性随着疾病的进展而不断增加，照顾阿尔茨海默病患者可能是一种独特且慢性的压力体验。本研究比较了 47 名痴呆症照顾者和 47 名年龄、性别和教育程度相匹配的非照顾者对照组之间的压力与认知表现之间的关系。参与者完成了评估压力的测量（通过感知压力量表测量）和认知的七个领域的测量，包括情景记忆、工作记忆、执行功能、注意力、视空间处理、加工速度和内隐记忆。结果表明，在某些情景记忆、工作记忆和执行功能的测量上，照顾者的表现不如非照顾者；而在注意力、视空间处理、加工速度或内隐记忆的测量上，没有观察到显著差异。此外，当控制一般压力时，照顾者在加工速度和视空间处理方面的表现也比非照顾者差。通过控制与照顾无关的一般压力水平，这些结果表明，认知表现的差异不太可能仅由一般压力来解释。
