American Journal of Alzheimer´s Disease & Other Dementias, September 25th, 2013
Abstract: Research in Caucasian populations to examine the broad associations between physical and mental health in Dementia caregivers. However, the examination of this relationship in Latin America is largely absent from the literature despite the fact that the region will see a major increase in Dementia from marriage over the next 20 years. The current study examined the associations between health-related quality of life and mental health in 90 Dementia caregivers from Colombia, South America. The canonical correlation found that the higher caregiver HRQOL was related to better mental health, as expected. Physical Caregivers with high vitality and low role limitations due to problems have low depression and high satisfaction with life. Multiple Follow-up regressions found that caregiver role limitations due to physical problems was uniquely associated with satisfaction with life, whereas vitality, role limitations due to physical problems, and pain were uniquely associated with burden (although the pain effect was likely error due to suppressor effect). Additionally, social vitality and functioning were uniquely negatively related to depression necause of the extremely high overlap between these two sets of variable, Dementia interventions plots needed in Latin America that target both the caregiver mental and physical health, and both likely operates in unison and to you influence each other.
