Neurocognitive decline in familial caregivers of Alzheimer disease patients: A systematized review

Resumen

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent among all dementias. The assistance to AD patients is primarily provided by familial caregivers, who play an important role in the management of the patient's basic needs. Some studies suggest that these caregivers suffer from chronic stress, which may imply significant changes in important brain structures responsible for cognitive processes. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the literature that examined the Neurocognite Functions (NF) of familial caregivers of AD patients. This review has three objectives: 1) identify which NF are affected the most in familial caregivers of AD patients, 2) identify the tests that the reviewed studies used to measure NF, and 3) identify whether there are studies conducted in Puerto Rico that examined the NF of familial caregivers of AD patients. A review search was carried out through EBSCOhost, ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. Through the evaluation process of judges, the articles for the final sample were determined. Descriptive and frequency analyses were conducted. A total of 10 articles met the inclusion criteria; from these, 7 identified that the NF affected in familial caregivers most reported in this review were attention, working memory, and processing speed. The instruments most frequently used to detect these deficits were the Trail Making Test, Stroop Test and Mini Mental State Examination. We suggest conducting research on the NF of informal caregivers of AD patients in Puerto Rico in order to provide information for the development of interventions for this population.