Taking Care of Dementia Patient can makes you Mentally Ill
Overview
This research is based on the effects of dementia patients on their surrounding people who are the main caretaker of a patient. Facing the problems of dementia patients to relieve their confusion had a great impact on their mental health. The focus of the research is to point out the mental problems faced by the caretakers of dementia patients their reasons and possible solutions.
Objectives:
- To evaluate the causes of disturbance regarding mental health issues faced by a caregiver around a dementia patient.
- To observe the impact of dementia patient’s condition on their caregivers and close family members.
- To study the mental health challenges faced by caregivers and family around a dementia patient.
Literature Review
A clinically approved mental health-based disease having brain-related syndromes like memory loss, brain misfunctioning, learning problems, severe disturbance in working of cortical, miss judgments, and others. The disease is commonly defined as dementia in clinical terminology. In the majority of the cases, another brain disease Alzheimer becomes the reason for dementia. There are some important types of dementia such as frontotemporal dementia, vascular dementia, and lewy body dementia are most common among them. There is basically a neurological change that concludes the actual pathology of dementia. This neuropathology of dementia causes severe deleterious effects during an illness like a disturbance in the behavior of patients, mental issues, communication hurdles basically summarized as behavioral psychological problems that are collectively termed as dementia. The problem of memory loss symptoms is broadly common than any physical disfunction (Selwood, et al., 2007).
Symptoms of Dementia
There have been many symptoms related to physical imbalances and pains also but it always starts from mental causes and effects. Dementia patients also have problems of certain pains as a result of their behavioral symptoms. Many of the critical symptoms appear in the later stages of the disease when the early stage becomes in the worst condition. These critical symptoms include aggression of different stages, type of pain, agitation.
The symptoms can extremely exhaust the patients and their caretakers. A feeling of distress to the caregivers initially developed which can be turned into severe mental health issues commonly stress, anxiety, or depression routinely. This condition can lead to the unsuitable prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs which then becomes habitual. The caretakers develop side effects of these types of medication because they are not registered patients and those drugs are for severely mentally disabled patients so problems can be worst.
There is also the problem of continuous neuropathological changes which affect sudden changes in symptoms and mental conditions of patients from time to time. The symptom of pain is regulating which effects on the ability of their communication skills so far. Discontinuation in speaking and recalling their memory frustrates them and so their caregivers are also affected (Achterberg, et al., 2013).
Statistic
According to the research of Prince et al., 2013, 35.6 million people worldwide had any form of dementia and it is estimated to increase by 1.56 billion individuals so far 2050 resulting in 22% population of the globe will suffer. Dementia is becoming the fastest-growing concern of worldwide public health problems is not only for adults and older but also can affect youngsters. Because if you are a caregiver or even a family member of a dementia patient, one can definitely be affected at some level. Dementia is the fastest-growing public health concern disturbing approximately 24% to 33% of people 80 above the age in Europe (Blennow, de Leon, & Zetterberg, 2006).
Impacts on Caregivers
As it is a neurodegenerative disorder that caused deleterious effects on patients like memory loss, cognitive abilities, and routine life imbalance such as walking, eating, talking, bathing, dressing and etc. as the disease enters advanced stages it decreases the patients will and abilities to perform in their daily routine practices and they need more and more care and help by their caregivers. As they become more dependent on their surrounding people the family and caretakers. In this condition, they badly affect their normal mental health balance (Alzheimer’s Association, 2012; Zarit & Talley, 2013).
Dementia is also described as a family disease because one patient in a family can affect the whole family and surrounding from mild to worst cases of symptoms. They are basically silent patients. Caregiving is not an easy duty to perform in the case of a mentally imbalanced patient. Those caregivers turned to silent patients after some time. Suffered from poor mental health outcomes that included excessive stress levels, high anxiety as well as depression attacks (Martín, et al., 2013). There has been a poor score of dementia patients’ related risk to caregivers in Latin America. Caregivers of dementia in Chile are more burdened of relative risks of mental disabilities have a high level of symptoms including stress, depression, anxiety, etc. caregiving of a patient with dementia is much more problematic than the caregiving of any other patient with another mental issue (Trujillo, et al 2016).
global problem of dementia
The global problem of dementia has already affected 44.4 million individuals around the world. The risk to their caretakers around them is also the greatest issue to concern throughout the world. The mental peace of an older family caregiver member is far more affected than a younger one (Koyama, et al., 2017). As there are many caregivers who can get mental instability but in spite of these reported cases, there are also good examples where caregivers overcome their mental condition and helped its patient towards betterment. Dementia is basically a disorder of the older age group globally. Almost all patients lived at their homes under the supervision of their nonprofessional family caregivers. Because of their lacking ability, they even can’t figure out the behaviors of their patient.
Risk for caregivers
They can’t even evaluate the real reasons and take up proper measures to counter that helpless condition of their patients. This is the cause then in recent research, it is reported that the stress, depression, anxiety, and poor mental health is a major wide-spreading issue in 50% of the caregivers who are taking care of any dementia patient. Studies observed that most of the caregivers at their worst stages were found to be more aggressive. At severe stages, they can hurt themselves, commit suicide, and desire death (Zhao, et al., 2019).
Social surveys, awareness, and training programs on mental and public health benefits and motivation sessions will be very helpful in this regard. A family member caretaker of a dementia patient is also called a second or silent patient are prone to be critically challenged and at risk. The causative effects on a caregiver can be different as positive or negative as in different scenarios.
Psychological help
It can overcome the burden on their shoulders to release depression and other related issues. The nearby caregivers or family members care for the patients by means of any social and cultural pressure, sense of duty, guilty feeling, for Sens of love and affection or a relationship, or in rare cases for the greed of money. The caregivers who are motivated by other things than greed more have chances to suffer from these emotional imbalances. It is also reported that to be a caregiver of a patient who suffers from dementia is worse than being with a patient having a physical disability (Brodaty & Donkin, 2009).
This is a need of globe now to improve this area with an approach of living for a person suffering from dementia or any other mental issue also for their family and close circle with their caregivers so they can participate in social life experiences and cured themselves of a social isolation an emotional imbalance. It is important to make regular sessions with them to get better results (de Vugt & Dröes, 2017).
Problem Statement
Dementia patients almost had the worst impact on their caregivers and close family. It has been a great problem in societies where cases of dementia are higher in numbers. There is a need to observe, study and evaluate the actual reasons, circumstances, and a number of new dementia or other mental health-related cases which are reported from the surroundings of a certified dementia patient. This will help to reduce the risk factors metal health issues by working on their causative factors.
Research Questions
- What are the outcomes regarding a disturbance in mental health and peace of mind of caretaker around a dementia patient?
- Is the dementia patient being a great risk of transformed disease towards their family and close ones?
- What are the mental health challenges suffered by a caregiver or a family member around a dementia patient?