Quality of life and subjective burden of primary dementia caregivers in Bangkok, Thailand.

PURPOSE: To study and compare factors correlated with quality of life and subjective burden of primary dementia caregivers at the Psychiatric Outpatient Unit of Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. METHODS: One hundred and fifty-five dementia caregivers were enrolled from September 2015 to May 2016. A set of general information questionnaires, the Pictorial Thai Quality of Life (PTQL) and the Thai version of the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) were used to collect general information, quality of life and subjective burden data. Factors correlated with quality of life and subjective burden were analyzed by Chi-square test. Multiple regression analysis was used to define factors predictive of the caregivers' quality of life. RESULTS: Forty percent of the participants assessed themselves as having burden. Positive predictive factors of the caregivers' quality of life included high education, income, satisfaction towards psychiatric care and having jobs. Female gender, having financial problems, sickness, long caregiving hours per day, burden from taking care of other dependents, and subjective burden (p < 0.05) were negative predictive factors of dementia caregivers' quality of life. CONCLUSION: The primary dementia caregivers' quality of life was correlated with their subjective burden, socioeconomic status and caregiving experiences. It is crucial to promote confidence in caregiving, perceived social support and positive satisfaction towards mental health care for dementia caregivers.

Validity and reliability of the Thai version of the confusion assessment method.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the validity and reliability of the Thai version of the confusion assessment method (CAM). MATERIAL AND METHOD: One hundred five inpatients who were consulted with the psychiatric consultation-liaison service unit, were enrolled in the present study. The validity assessment of the Thai version of the CAM was done by comparing it with the gold standard diagnosis of delirium by psychiatrists using DSM-IV-TR criteria. The reliability assessment was obtained from a sample of 35 patients assessed by two psychiatric residents. RESULTS: The Thai version of CAM had a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 94.54. The positive predictive value was 93.75% and the negative predictive value was 91.23%. Likelihood ratio showed 16.5-fold risk of delirium positive through using the Thai CAM Interrater reliability in diagnosis of delirium was high (k = 0.77). CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrated that the Thai version of CAM is a valid and reliable tool for assessing and diagnosing delirium in Thailand.

Effects of anticholinergic drugs on cognitive function in older Australians: results from the AIBL study.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The nature and extent of adverse cognitive effects due to the prescription of anticholinergic drugs in older people with and without dementia is unclear. METHODS: We calculated the anticholinergic load (ACL) of medications taken by participants of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) study of ageing, a cohort of 211 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, 133 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients and 768 healthy controls (HC) all aged over 60 years. The association between ACL and cognitive function was examined for each diagnostic group (HC, MCI, AD). RESULTS: A high ACL within the HC group was associated with significantly slower response speeds for the Stroop color and incongruent trials. No other significant relationships between ACL and cognition were noted. CONCLUSION: In this large cohort, prescribed anticholinergic drugs appeared to have modest effects upon psychomotor speed and executive function, but not on other areas of cognition in healthy older adults.