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1000
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Abstract/Summary
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Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) need early caregiver support. Caregivers often have poor health, but usually do not have time to seek medical advice for their own conditions. Patients' physicians, who are frequently the sole medical practitioner caregivers contact regularly, have an important function in recognizing family caregivers' burdens. The current study investigated to what extent medical practitioners recognized family caregivers' problems. In a two-staged survey in neurology outpatient care, caregivers of patients with mild or moderate AD were enrolled and assessed by physicians regarding their physical and mental burden, as well as need for help and advice about AD. Subsequently, caregivers' mental health was evaluated in a comprehensive diagnostic interview by blinded psychologists. Overall, 73.7% of caregivers had at least one somatic condition and 43.7% had clinically relevant depressive symptoms (of these, 37.5% met criteria for major depression). The findings suggest that the burden of a substantial proportion of affected family caregivers is overlooked.
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