Seltzer B, Vasterling J J, Yoder J A, Thompson K A
Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA.
Gerontologist. 1997 Feb;37(1):20-4. doi: 10.1093/geront/37.1.20.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show varying degrees of awareness of their deficits. To examine the impact of this phenomenon upon the distress experienced by family caregivers of AD patients, we analyzed caregiver burden in relation to patient awareness of deficit in three different functional domains. The relationship of burden to selected sociodemographic variables was also explored. Results of multiple regression analyses suggested that caregiver burden was associated with impaired patient awareness of memory deficit independent of disease stage and dementia severity. The findings suggest that impaired awareness may be an important mediator of caregiver burden, a concern in the management of AD.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者对自身缺陷的认知程度各不相同。为了研究这一现象对AD患者家庭照料者所经历的痛苦的影响，我们分析了照料者负担与患者在三个不同功能领域对缺陷的认知之间的关系。还探讨了负担与选定的社会人口学变量之间的关系。多元回归分析结果表明，照料者负担与患者对记忆缺陷的认知受损有关，且与疾病阶段和痴呆严重程度无关。研究结果表明，认知受损可能是照料者负担的一个重要中介因素，这是AD管理中一个值得关注的问题。
