Authors: Loreli Alvarez, Gilberto Isaac Acosta‐Castillo, Ana Luisa Sosa‐Ortiz
Published: 2020-12-07
DOI: 10.1002/alz.043498
Source: Full article
AbstractBackgroundDue to the high impact of dementia it is a priority to focus on the well‐being of those with this condition, enabling participation, inclusion and better functioning of people with this disease. In the research context it’s increasing the interest on documenting the needs reported by those living with dementia. The aim of this study was to describe well‐being indicators in people living with dementia to construct a composite measure of needs for this group.MethodWe analyze data from the cohort of the 10/66 Dementia Research Group in Mexico.ResultsOur sample consisted in 180 community‐dwelling elders with dementia. There were more women than men, with an average age of 80.8 (7.1) years, 52% had no formal education and 48.3% lived in rural areas. We selected 14 indicators of three dimensions of well‐being (physical health, psychological health and social resources) previously reported in literature. To build a composite measure of well‐being, scores of 0‐2 were assigned to each of the variables studied according to the benefit they represented for the elderly. Our composite measure has a total score of 22 with low scores indicating poor well‐being. We selected the 25th and 75th percentiles to classify subjects in three groups of well‐being (low, moderate, high). Those with higher showed less problems in eyesight, hearing and appetite problems; experience pain less frequently and had fewer comorbidities than the other two groups (low or moderate well‐being); highest well‐being group had less neuropsychiatric symptoms(NPS) and higher global cognitive scores; they attend more frequently to religious services, social activities and need no care according to their informant. The distributions of sleep problems, living alone, contact with relatives and disability showed no difference between the groups (Table1).ConclusionOur results show that people with higher well‐being have better physical and psychological health and more social resources compared with those classified with moderate and low well‐being. With our composite measure we can identify needs and possible areas to improve living well in community dwelling dementia patients.