Caring for a chronically ill person, such as an Alzheimer’s patient, requires a great effort on the part of what we call their ‘primary caregiver’. In Spain, the most frequent profile of caregiver is a middle-aged woman who has a family relationship with the patient, generally his daughter or his wife. These people dedicate a large number of hours a day to the care and supervision of the patient without finding, in many cases, enough moments of rest to recover from this situation of chronic stress. Some studies have suggested that this chronic caregiver stress is a risk factor for the development of cognitive decline and even dementia.
It seems that it is time to take care of the main caregiver… offering, for example, ways to train their mental functions, increasing their cognitive resources, or teaching them ways to manage stress. But let’s analyze why.
Not all stressed caregivers are at risk, and researchers continue to search for variables that may play a role in this relationship. The so-called metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance syndrome could play an important role in this relationship between stress and the possibility of developing cognitive disorders in caregivers of chronically ill patients. This syndrome includes factors such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, low ‘good’ cholesterol, high blood triglyceride levels, and excess fat in the waist area, which are known to they put us at risk of developing heart disease. In addition, it now seems that, in some cases, they can also favor the development of cognition problems in conditions of chronic stress.
A study recently published in the Open Journal of Medical Psychology (2013) examines the relationship between being a caregiver, the subjective perception of cognitive problems and an index of metabolic syndrome composed of various measures such as systolic pressure or waist measurement, among others. All participants were followed for eight years, which initially showed that those with a higher rate of metabolic syndrome also had more complaints about their cognitive functioning. Although according to the analyzes, caring for a chronic patient was not directly associated with a greater feeling of loss of mental functions, the stress associated with being a caregiver moderated the relationship found between the metabolic syndrome index and cognitive complaints for eight more years late.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist, Unobrain
