Burden caregivers of elderly with dementia: a study in a geriatric outpatient clinic in southeast Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Braga Roque, Stella Marys
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Xavier Braga, Maicon Douglas, Gonçalves Araújo, Matheus José Afonso, Alves Nogueira, Mariana, Sales, Tallisson Matheus, Alves Barbosa Teles, Mariza
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: HU Revista (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/hurevista/article/view/31207
• topic: Dementia; Elderly People; Caregivers; Demência; Idoso; Cuidadores

Introduction: The population is getting older. Thus, there's a growth in the chronic diseases, among them the Alzheimer Disease, a neurodegenerative dementia characterized for the progressive autonomy loss. The mental and physic exhaustion of the caregiver is caused by the frequent act of taking care and it may result in emotional, social and burnout problems as well. AIM: Evaluate the elderly caregiver's overload with dementia in a reference center to elderly people in southeastern Brazil. Materials and methods: Exploratory Research, descriptive, transversal held in August to October 2019, with 110 elderly caregivers with dementia, through a convenience sample. As data collect instruments were used an interview script and to evaluate the overload were used the Zarit's scale. Results: The caregivers, most of them were from the feminine sex (87, 3%), married (53,3%), with over 8 years of education 62 (56,4%), son or daughter of an elderly person: 81 (73,6%) with caregiving with care time between 0-3 years: 59 (53.6%), with 20-24 hours of daily dedication: 51(46,4%) and they were about 50, 6 years old (DP+- 11, 00 years). In the Zarit's evaluation scale, the participants showed moderate overload with an average of 23, 0 (DP+ 12, 13). Conclusion: In this sense, it is important to be implemented actions in the health service that work as a  support to the elderly caregivers with dementia, in order to help them with their daily activities’ to the elderly person, minimizing in this way, the overload experienced by them.