The emotional impact of psychiatric symptoms in dementia on partner caregivers: do caregiver, patient, and situation characteristics make a difference?

This study aims to investigate the emotional impact of psychiatric symptoms of patients with dementia on their caregiving partners, and to explore if caregiver, patient, and situation factors predict this emotional impact on caregivers. A cross-sectional design was used. Partners of patients with slight to moderately severe dementia who live in the community (n = 85) were interviewed. In a subgroup (n = 58) potential predictors of emotional impact of psychiatric symptoms on caregivers were studied. Agitation, irritability, apathy, and disinhibition produced the highest mean emotional impact scores in caregivers. Besides the neuropsychiatric symptoms themselves, the emotional impact of these symptoms on caregivers was predicted by sense of competence, degree of care needed by the patient, and financial expenditure due to the caregiving situation. The emotional impact of psychiatric symptoms on caregivers is predicted by several patient, caregiver, and situation factors. Interventions aimed at decreasing the experienced burden of caregivers should therefore not only focus on the psychiatric symptoms of the patient, but also on the sense of competence of the caregiver and the financial burden due to the caregiving situation

Incorporating vector ecology and life history into disease transmission models : insights from Tsetse (Glossina spp.)

Accurate models are crucial for predicting the spread of vector-borne diseases, and for developing appropriate control policies. Simple models often ignore finer details of vector biology, commonly due to lack of pertinent field data. However, for tsetse (Glossina spp), vectors of the parasites causing debilitating human and livestock trypanosomiasis in Africa, extensive field and laboratory data facilitate improved models and predictions of vector control outcomes. We review studies on the effects of environmental temperature, and fly age and sex, on survival and reproduction in tsetse, savannah species particularly–emphasizing the extreme maternal investment and sensitivity of early life stages to high temperatures. We consider implications of these results for predictive models of tsetse populations, and of the transmission and control of African trypanosomiasis. We discuss how further research on vectors, and improved models of vector populations and disease dynamics, can lead to improved predictions of vector abundance and disease spread