The profile of caregivers of elderly with Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The elderly caregiver is the person who provides care to meet the functional disability, temporary or permanent, of a person in their practical tasks such as activities of daily living and self-care. The task of caring includes actions aimed, in the case of a person with physical or mental, to take her to participate in activities related to welfare or subjective improvement in relations and in the social field, with the others, the very extensive caregiver, but also in the emotional, loving, especially for older people, a concern of this work. The objective of this study is therefore to map the demographic profile and the time spent on tasks associated with care, since variables such as age, gender, education, relationship to the elderly; time care for patients with Alzheimer's Disease; is formal or informal caregiver; their daily activities, hours of care for the elderly per day if receiving help from family, knowledge and questions about the disease, their feelings, psychological changes and physical activities; aggressions; information about social actions; resources and public policy. It is a qualitative study, quantitative, descriptive exploratory held on a regional Alzheimer's Association Brazilian city of the Middle Paraíba Valley. The study population were the caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's Disease who agreed to participate. It was found that the group of caregivers manifested great physical, emotional and subjective, connected to an excessive load and strenuous work, almost to the point of living according to their patients, forgetting themselves and not taking care of yourself. The study ratifies the impacts and challenges to a caregiver for elderly people with Alzheimer's Disease are complex and worrying consequences to the elderly-caregiver relationship and the caregiver's own life, which shows the urgent need to find solutions to the complexity of these relationships.