Caregivers of family members with dementia experience more health problems than non...( WASHINGTON More than five million care...),Health

WASHINGTON More than five million caregivers of persons with dementia exist in the United States (AARP, 1988) and no quantitative review has been conducted on the physical health correlates of caring for a family member with dementia until now. In a meta-analysis of 23 studies examining self-reported health and physiological functioning in caregivers of persons with dementia, researchers found that caregivers had higher stress hormones, lower resistance to some viruses and reported poorer health than noncaregivers who were similar in age and sex. This finding is reported on in the November issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Psychologist Peter P. Vitaliano, Ph.D., of the University of Washington and colleagues examined 23 studies involving 3,072 participants ages 55 to 75 years over a 38 year period to compare the physical health of caregivers demographically matched with noncaregivers on 11 health categories self-reported health, chronic illnesses, physical symptoms, medication use, health service use, functional cellular immunity, antibodies, enumerative immunity, stress hormones, cardiovascular function and metabolic function. The authors found that caregivers had a 23 percent higher level of stress hormones and a 15 percent lower level of antibody responses than noncaregivers.

Overtime, caregivers' elevated stress hormones can lead to physiological problems such as elevated blood pressure and glucose levels, said Dr. Vitaliano, which can increase their risk for hypertension and diabetes. Furthermore, poorer antibody production for older caregivers may also increase their risk for influenza even if they receive flu shots, said Vitaliano.

Female caregivers reported more health problems but they did not exhibit higher hormone, cardiovascular or metabolic disease risk than male caregivers, said the authors. "Women report more health problems than men in many situations," explain the
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Contact: Pam Willenz
pwillenz@apa.org
202-336-5707
American Psychological Association
9-Nov-2003

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