[Biography and dementia. Origin of challenging behavior in patients with multi-infarct dementia or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type in long term care with reference the biographical level]. / Biografie und Demenz. Entstehung von herausforderndem Verhalten bei Menschen mit einer Multi-Infarkt-Demenz oder einer senilen Demenz vom Alzheimer Typ in der Langzeitversorgung auf biografischer Ebene.

The aim of this study was to explore the connection between the nature of agitated behaviour and meaningful biographical experiences within two types of dementia in a moderate stadium. The two dementia types included Alzheimer Disease (SDAT) and Multi-infarction aphrenia (MID). Biographical narrative interviews with 26 nursing home residents suffering from dementia have been concluded. Topics were their first thirty years of life (based on a foreign anamnesis). The challenging behaviour has been observed systematically in nursing situations. The data has been evaluated with the comparative casuistics method (Jüttemann, 1990). The behaviour has been measured with the CMAI-scale before and also after having moved to a nursing home. Residents behaviour patterns can be divided into three biographical central characters: Life as finding, life as emotional disorder and life as struggle. Institutional characteristics: Loss of near rhythms of life, losing control over the personal area, experience of social isolation and certain characteristics from nurses: staff detractions and the exercise of nursing actions which appears threats contribute to the phenomena. A disparity is shown between the types of dementia in terms of patterns of demonstrated behaviour. In addition gender differences could be shown. The recognition of the phenomena by means of the CMAI-scale elucidate that the phenomena appears for the first time or is stronger after the resettlement to a nursing home. These findings can improve nurses' understanding of the phenomena within long-term care.

Health-related quality-of-life of care-givers as a predictor of nursing-home placement of patients with dementia.

Care-giver health-related quality-of-life (QoL) as a predictor of nursing-home placement of family-member patients with dementia was evaluated (using the SF-36 questionnaire) in 181 care providers (78% females; mean age 63 years) at the start and at the end of 12 months of follow-up. The patients and their carers were evaluated at home or at the local Primary Health-care Centers (n = 37) in the area of Barcelona (Catalunya, Spain). Data were evaluated using logistic regression analysis with nursing-home placement of patients as the main outcome measure, and the care-givers' QoL, demographic, medical, social and cognitive variables as covariates. The incidence rate of nursing-home placement was 10.5% (95%CI: 6.4-15.9). Carers of patients who had not been placed in a nursing home had better QoL scores, even after controlling for potential confounding factors. The adjusted odds ratio of being admitted to a nursing home was 6.4 (95%CI: 2.1-19.0) for patients cared-for by relatives who rated their health as being much worse compared with the previous year. The care-giver's poor health-related QoL significantly influenced rates of nursing-home admission of patients in their care.

Caregiving appraisal and interventions based on the progressively lowered stress threshold model.

The purpose of this article is to describe the impact of a theoretically driven, psychoeducational intervention based on the Progressively Lowered Stress Threshold (PLST) model on caregiving appraisal among community-based caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. A total of 241 subjects completed the year-long study in four sites in Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, and Arizona. Caregiving appraisal was measured using the four factors of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Caregiving Appraisal Scale: mastery, burden, satisfaction, and impact. Analysis of trends over time showed that the intervention positively affected impact, burden, and satisfaction but had no effect on mastery when measured against the comparison group. The PLST model was influential in increasing positive appraisal and decreasing negative appraisal of the caregiving situation.

The relationship between difficulties in feeding oneself and loss of weight in nursing-home patients with dementia.

OBJECTIVE: to investigate the cause of unintentional weight loss in demented nursing-home patients. DESIGN: body weight was measured at 3-month intervals and related to the primary diagnosis, problems in feeding oneself and other factors influencing food intake. SETTING: a Dutch nursing home. SUBJECTS: 250 resident patients and 264 new and consecutively admitted patients above the age of 65. RESULTS: for both demented and non-demented nursing-home patients, a strong relationship exists between weight loss and choosing food, bringing it to the mouth and chewing: the greater these difficulties, the lower the body weight. This relationship was more evident in existing residents than in newly admitted patients. Body weight was not well correlated with the diagnosis of dementia but was correlated with poor appetite and immobility. CONCLUSION: disabilities resulting from dementia can lead to an inadequate intake of food and thus to weight loss in nursing-home residents.

Moving from the question of efficacy to the question of therapeutic relevance: an exploratory reanalysis of a controlled clinical study of 130 inpatients with dementia syndrome taking piracetam.

The authors reanalyzed previously published data from a prospectively randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind phase-III study of 130 inpatients with dementia syndrome. The patients in the study had been diagnosed as having suffered from organic brain syndrome (ICD 290), which is the core syndrome of dementia (so-called dementia syndrome) for at least two years. They were treated with piracetam for three months at a dose level of 4,800 mg/d. These data were reexamined in order both to survey the extent of drug-related improvement and response rates when assessed at different levels and to investigate the comparability of efficacy in subgroups suffering from either senile dementia of the Alzheimer type or multi-infarct dementia. Three scales were used for the assessment of efficacy. They were the CGI, or Clinical Global Impression, completed by the physicians; the SCAG, or Sandoz Clinical Assessment Geriatric, used by clinical psychologists; and the BGP, or Beurteilungsskala für Geriatrische Patienten (Evaluation Scale for Geriatric Patients), employed by the nursing staff. The Syndrome-Kurztest (SKT) and Benton tests served to measure performance. The items and subscores of the SCAG and the SKT were highly intercorrelated at baseline, forming a common factor fairly independent of the information gained by BGP. This suggests that merely using different kinds of information-gathering methods, i.e., clinical scales and performance tests, completed by different groups of observers, does not automatically result in nonredundant comprehensive information. When using the most conservative response criterion of individual improvement, i.e., at least one baseline standard deviation, treatment with piracetam showed statistically significant (pe less than .001) explorative response rates of 50% and above in three out of four target variables, as compared to the 0 to 6% obtained with placebo. CGI was used as descriptive variable. Again, using this response criterion from a separate analysis of diagnostic subgroups, as matched by the median of the patients' Hachinski Ischemic Scale scores, it does not appear that piracetam's efficacy for patients with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) varies with its efficacy for patients with multi-infarct dementia (MID).