Caring for a relative with dementia: family caregiver burden

Aim. This paper is a report of part of a study to investigate the burden experienced by families giving care to a relative with dementia, the consequences of care for the mental health of the primary caregiver and the strategies families use to cope with the care giving stressors. Background. The cost of caring for people with dementia is enormous, both monetary and psychological. Partners, relatives and friends who take care of patients experience emotional, physical and financial stress, and care giving demands are central to decisions on patient institutionalization. Method. A volunteer sample of 172 caregiver/care recipient dyads participated in the study in Cyprus in 2004–2005. All patients were suffering from probable Alzheimer’s type dementia and were recruited from neurology clinics. Data were collected using the Memory and Behaviour Problem Checklist, Burden Interview, Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale and Ways of Coping Questionnaire. Findings. The results showed that 68Æ02% of caregivers were highly burdened and 65% exhibited depressive symptoms. Burden was related to patient psychopathology and caregiver sex, income and level of education. There was no statistically significant difference in level of burden or depression when patients lived in the community or in institutions. High scores in the burden scale were associated with use of emotional- focused coping strategies, while less burdened relatives used more problemsolving approaches to care-giving demands. Conclusion. Caregivers, especially women, need individualized, specific training in how to understand and manage the behaviour of relatives with dementia and how to cope with their own feelings

Inflammatory bowel disease unclassified

Objective: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are idiopathic, chronic, and inflammatory intestinal disorders. The two main types, ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), sometimes mimic each other and are not readily distinguishable. The purpose of this study was to present a series of hospitalized cases, which could not initially be classified as a subtype of IBD, and to try to note roles of the terms indeterminate colitis (IC) and inflammatory bowel disease unclassified (IBDU) when such a dilemma arises. Methods: Medical records of 477 patients hospitalized due to IBD, during the period of January 2002 to April 2009, were retrospectively studied in the present paper. All available previous biopsies from endoscopies of these patients were reanalyzed. Results: Twenty-seven of 477 IBD patients (5.7%) had been initially diagnosed as having IBDU. Of them, 23 received colonoscopy and histological examinations in our hospital. A total of 90% (9/10) and 66.7% (4/6) of patients, respectively, had a positive finding via wireless capsule endoscopy (CE) and double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE). The barium-swallow or small bowel follow-through (SBFT) was performed on 11 patients. Positive changes were observed under computer tomographic (CT) scanning in 89.5% (17/19) of patients. Reasonable treatment strategies were employed for all patients. Conclusions: Our data indicate that IBDU accounts for 5.7% of initial diagnoses of IBD. The definition of IBDU is valuable in clinical practice. For those who had no clear clinical, endoscopic, histological, or other features affording a diagnosis of either UC or CD, IBDU could be used parenthetically