The burden of caregivers for elderly relatives with dementia in Brazil: An integrative literature review

Abstract

This study describes Brazilian caregiver burden in the case of demented aged people, through an integrative review, from 1999 to 2009, published in Portuguese and English. Data were collected through the electronic databases Pubmed, CINAHL and LILACS. The keywords used in CINAHL and Pubmed databases were: “dementia” OR “cognitive impairment”, “aged” OR “older people”, “Brazil”, “caregiver burden” OR “caregiver stress” OR “caregiver strain”. A total of 14 papers were found. The keywords used in LILACS in the field DeCS category were “aged”, “caregivers” and “dementia” combined with AND, which resulted in 25 studies. About 39 papers were selected, which were then reduced to 19, after unrelated themes, the Spanish language, duplicate papers, reviews, theses/dissertations and books. The studies were organized into three categories: 11 (57.9%) focused the correlation between caregiver burden and the characteristics of the caregivers and the demented elderly individuals; six (31.6%) reported the experiences and feelings reported by the caregivers; only one (5.3%) exclusively focused on the definition of burden and one (5.3%) even reported the reliability of a specific instrument directed to the Brazilian population addressing caregiver burden. The Brazilian government and city health services, universities, non-governmental organizations and other agencies and networks urgently need to organize in order to devise formal and informal intervention proposals directed to informal caregivers.

Keywords: elderly; dementia; caregivers; family

Received: February 15, 2012; Accepted: March 31, 2012; Published online: April 13, 2012

Corresponding Author: Aline Cristina Martins Gratão, PhD, Professor, University of Brasilia. Graduate Program of Nursing, Endereço: SHIN, CA 2, Bloco E, apto 302. Lago Norte. Brasília/DF. CEP: 71503502, Brazil. E-mail: aline-gratao@hotmail.com