Fundación para la Lucha contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia, Memory and Ageing Center, Department of Cognitive Neurology, Neuropsychology and Neuropsychiatry (FLENI), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Int Psychogeriatr. 2020 Nov;32(11):1377-1381. doi: 10.1017/S1041610220001593. Epub 2020 Jul 30.
COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina has affected the care of older adults with dementia deeply. Our objective was to study how the obligatory social isolation affected stress caregiver and burden of care of family members of subjects living with dementia in the community after the initial 4 weeks of quarantine in our setting. We did a questionnaire survey among 80 family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or related dementia collected on April 2020. We designed a visual analog scale to test the level of the burden of care. Characteristics of people with dementia and their caregivers were analyzed with descriptive (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percent) and inferential statistics (chi-square test). The sample included older adults (mean age: 80.51 ± 7.65) with different stages of dementia. Family was the primary provider of care in 65%. Overall, COVID-19 confinement increased stress caregiver independently of the dementia stage, but those caring for severe cases had more stress compared to milder forms of the disease. Other findings were that half of the subjects with dementia experienced increased anxiety and that most family members discontinued all sort of cognitive and physical therapies. Family members' main concerns were for severe dementia cases, fear of absence of the paid caregiver during the epidemic, and for mild cases fear of spreading the disease while assisting patients with instrumental activities. A partnership between departments of public health, care workers and families must be planned to guarantee continuity of care during these unique COVID-19 times.
阿根廷的 COVID-19 大流行对老年痴呆症患者的护理产生了深远的影响。我们的目的是研究在我们的环境中隔离最初的 4 周后，强制性社会隔离如何影响社区中患有痴呆症的患者的照顾者的压力和照顾负担。我们在 2020 年 4 月对 80 名阿尔茨海默病（AD）或相关痴呆症患者的家庭照顾者进行了问卷调查。我们设计了一个视觉模拟量表来测试照顾负担的水平。使用描述性（平均值、标准差、频率和百分比）和推论统计（卡方检验）分析痴呆症患者及其照顾者的特征。样本包括不同痴呆症阶段的老年人（平均年龄：80.51 ± 7.65 岁）。家庭是 65%的主要照顾者。总体而言，COVID-19 隔离增加了照顾者的压力，而与痴呆症的阶段无关，但照顾严重病例的人比照顾较轻病例的人压力更大。其他发现是，一半的痴呆症患者经历了焦虑增加，而且大多数家庭成员停止了所有认知和身体治疗。家庭成员主要关注严重痴呆症病例，担心在疫情期间没有有偿护理人员，以及在帮助患者进行工具性活动时担心轻度病例传播疾病。必须计划公共卫生部门、护理人员和家庭之间的伙伴关系，以确保在这些独特的 COVID-19 时期提供护理的连续性。
