Psychological, Social, and Health Consequences of Caring for a Relative with Senile Dementia

While providing home care for a family member with senile dementia is clearly extremely stressful, there has been little controlled research assessing the specific effects of this stress on caregiver psychological, social, and health functioning. To address this question, 44 primary caregivers of senile dementia patients and 44 matched controls completed a series of questionnaires and interview assessments. Caregivers reported significantly higher levels of depression and negative affect toward their relatives, and lower overall life satisfaction than controls. Caregivers also had significant impairment of their social activities, including visits with friends, vacations, and church attendance when compared with controls. Caregivers expressed less satisfaction with their social networks than did controls, but the groups did not differ in objective size of social network or number of network contacts. Caregivers reported poorer health, more prescription medication use, and higher utilization of health care than controls. Results clearly indicate the serious and wide-ranging effects of the stress of caregiving, and reinforce the importance of providing comprehensive services for caregiving families.