Sobrecarga emocional de cuidadores de pacientes com demência: Relações entre cognição social e sintomas neuropsiquiátricos.

The research investigated whether the emotional burden of dementia caregivers is affected by the patients' social cognition deficits and neuropsychiatric symptoms. The study population comprises patients with dementia monitored by a Geriatric Service of a University Hospital at Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, and their caregivers. This is a cross-sectional study with a single collection of data. Data were obtained from 14 patients diagnosed with dementia and 14 caregivers. The scales used in this study were: Zarit Burden Interview Scale, Quality of Life Alzheimer Dementia, Clinical Dementia Rating Scale, and Neuropsychiatric Inventory. For the investigation of Social Cognition, the Hinting Task, ToM Stories and Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test scales were used. The mean age of the patients was 81.64; and all patients had relatives as caregivers. Caregivers had 68.5 of mean age, the majority of whom were women (92.8%). Most of them worked exclusively as a caregiver for the relative with dementia (71%). The scores of the social cognition scales were considered low when compared to previous studies. The scale with greater performance was the Hinting Task, with 61.15%, considerably higher than the percentage of correct answers from ToM Stories (32.1%) and RMET (32.4%). Patients with poorer performance in recognizing facial expressions, assessed by RMET, showed greater irritability (r = -0.829). The level of dependence and the degree of dementia were strongly correlated with caregiver burden (r = 0.931 and r = 0.635). Lower family income was related to a more disturbance in the caregiver's health due to the care of the family member (r = -0.805, p <0.001). The scales of social cognition showed that there is, in fact, a deficit among patients with dementia. Also, 57,1% of caregivers had moderate levels of emotional overload related to patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]