Consequences of Covid-19 in older adults with dementia

ABSTRACT

The pandemic caused by Covid 19 is having a negative impact on human health, it affects the entire world population, raising mortality rates on a large scale in vulnerable groups;as in older adults with dementia. By this disease they have lost their independence being unable to take care for themselves and is related to deaths from Covid-19. Likewise, the confinement has affections at psychological and behavioral levels, increasing stress levels for fear of losing life and situations they face such as loneliness, poverty, discrimination, social isolation among others;these are determining factors for the older adults to be affected more than other populations and clearly there is a breakdown in the quality of life. On the other hand, caregivers experience work overload because there is no one else to replace them, restrictions on home visits and isolation are undoubtedly of great concern to their families, there are restrictions in medical visits, therapies and more treatments that in many cases, by not receiving them, they aggravate the health status of the elderly. Finally there are home and leisure activities that help counteract the effects of thepandemic and the dementia, among the main ones we can mention physical exercise, gardening, video calls, meditation and others. There is little research that indicates a survival plan, so that more work should be done on this group of people in order to find more alternatives than help improve the quality of life of older adults.