Vivências das famílias no percurso da doença de Alzheimer

• Autor(a) principal: Matos, Paula Cristina Barros de
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Estadual de Maringá (RI-UEM)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.uem.br:8080/jspui/handle/1/2488
• topic: Doença de Alzheimer; Relações familiares; Cuidadores; Enfermagem; Brasil.; Alzheimer s disease; Family relationship; Caretakers; Nursing; Brazil.; Ciências da Saúde; Enfermagem

The arrival of Alzheimer's disease in the family might require a readjustment of roles of its members to better face the challenge, as well as the significant changes imposed in their daily routine, because caregiving sometimes becomes a tiring task, mainly if it goes on for a long period. Considering that, to investigate the situations experienced in the domestic ambit of those that face the disease in their homes, it becomes fundamental to search for new strategies of assistance to promote the physical and psychological well-being of that population and to plan integral actions in health which might bring solutions to reduce the effects of overloading in caregiving experienced by the relatives. With that in mind, the objective of the study was to apprehend the experiences of the families in the course of the Alzheimer's disease. It is an exploratory-descriptive study of quanti-qualitative approach. Data was collected from 80 family caretakers of elderlies with Alzheimer's disease from December 2010 to March 2011, in two moments. In the first moment, the quantitative data was collected from 80 family caretakers. At that time it was made use of the Family Apgar instrument. Soon after, the subjects that obtained the lowest Apgar indexes, totaling a sample of 35 individuals, participated in the second moment of the study, in order to collect information for the qualitative dimension of the work. The quantitative data was organized in electronic database through the Excel Program, and later statistical procedures were accomplished while the qualitative ones were submitted to the categorical content analysis of the thematic type. The resultsshowed that most of the careg ivers were female, an average of 54.8 years of age, with 8 years or more of education, and they suffered from some kind of health problem. As for the elderlies, most were female, an average of 80.8 years of age, with 3 years or less of education, they possessed co-morbidities and they were in the moderate stage of the disease. It was observed that in relation to family functionality 43.7% of the caretakers presented high family dysfunction, 31.3% showed moderate and 25% showed good family functionality. From all the statistical tests, the only variable that had relationship with the Family Apgar was the stage of the disease (p = 0.033). It could be considered that most of the families studied were not prepared to assume the role of taking care of a patient suffering from Alzheimer. It was noticed that the changes occurred in the caretaker's life after the onset of the disease, include habits, activities and routines, interference in their daily routine and it brings intense physical and emotional weariness. The relationship among relatives undergoes some alterations, leaving most of the times, an only person in charge of the onerous task of caregiving and that fact can bring conflicts for the family as a whole. The caretakers make use of different strategies however all of them carried the intention of better face the Alzheimer's disease and to solve the problems that appeared in its course, in order to maintain the emotional balance and the quality of the care given to their relative. With the considerations pointed out in this study one hopes to contribute to the Nursing field in order to have professionals formulating strategies regarding elderlies' caretakers in agreement with their specificities, in order to improve their health conditions and consequently, to contribute to better quality of life of the relative with Alzheimer .