Abstract
Alzheimer's disease reduces the ability of self-dependant life and causes reliance mainly on the primary care person thus influencing the whole family life. In our empirical survey, we tried to learn about the presence and the extent of strain, anxiety, and depression of family members (caring in a short or long-term) who are provided with qualified or psychosocial help.
For both research survey used questionnaires Zarit Burden Inventory, Interview (ZBI), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS 15), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), a semistructured interview. The main arising issues in family care are voluntary self-dependence, shared care, and sibling relations.
The family caretakers need supporting programmes to be able to care for an elderly family member with dementia in their home environment. 2/3 of caregivers in our research group showed an increase in depressive or anxiety symptomatology, ZBI but significantly correlated with other questionnaires used and proved very weak correlation between ZBI, age or length of treatment (r = 0.01).