{"title":"The effect of apathy on quality of life and caregiver burden in patients with dementia.","authors":"Kimya Kılıçaslan, Zeliha Tulek, I Hakan Gurvit","doi":"10.1080/13546805.2025.2451283","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Apathy is one of the common neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with dementia (PwD). The aim of this study is to determine the impact of apathy on the patient's quality of life (QoL) and caregiver's burden among PwD.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Sample of this cross-sectional descriptive study consisted of 88 PwD attending the outpatient clinic of a university hospital in Istanbul and their family caregivers. The evaluation battery included Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES), Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) and Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (QoL-AD).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The mean age of the patients was 73.1 ± 11.7, and the time since diagnosis was 3.9 ± 3.1 years; 64.8% had Alzheimer's type dementia, and 53.4% (n = 47) had mild dementia. The mean AES-C score was 52.9 ± 10.2, QoL-AD score was 28.4 ± 5.6 and CBI score 32.6 ± 25.9. Apathy was associated with medical comorbidity, stage of dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, functional status and depression. Apathy was found to be predictor of the QoL-AD and also related with CBI.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In dementia patients, apathy was associated with patients' functional status, quality of life, and caregiver burden. It is recommended that patients be evaluated for apathy and its impact on activities of daily living, quality of life and caregiver burden.</p>","PeriodicalId":51277,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Neuropsychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive Neuropsychiatry","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13546805.2025.2451283","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHIATRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: Apathy is one of the common neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with dementia (PwD). The aim of this study is to determine the impact of apathy on the patient's quality of life (QoL) and caregiver's burden among PwD.
Methods: Sample of this cross-sectional descriptive study consisted of 88 PwD attending the outpatient clinic of a university hospital in Istanbul and their family caregivers. The evaluation battery included Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES), Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) and Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (QoL-AD).
Results: The mean age of the patients was 73.1 ± 11.7, and the time since diagnosis was 3.9 ± 3.1 years; 64.8% had Alzheimer's type dementia, and 53.4% (n = 47) had mild dementia. The mean AES-C score was 52.9 ± 10.2, QoL-AD score was 28.4 ± 5.6 and CBI score 32.6 ± 25.9. Apathy was associated with medical comorbidity, stage of dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms, functional status and depression. Apathy was found to be predictor of the QoL-AD and also related with CBI.
Conclusions: In dementia patients, apathy was associated with patients' functional status, quality of life, and caregiver burden. It is recommended that patients be evaluated for apathy and its impact on activities of daily living, quality of life and caregiver burden.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry (CNP) publishes high quality empirical and theoretical papers in the multi-disciplinary field of cognitive neuropsychiatry. Specifically the journal promotes the study of cognitive processes underlying psychological and behavioural abnormalities, including psychotic symptoms, with and without organic brain disease. Since 1996, CNP has published original papers, short reports, case studies and theoretical and empirical reviews in fields of clinical and cognitive neuropsychiatry, which have a bearing on the understanding of normal cognitive processes. Relevant research from cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology and clinical populations will also be considered.
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