Introduction: Young-onset AD (YOAD) affects people aged 65 years old or younger with greater initial loss of cognitive abilities, more significantly on attention, visuospatial function, motor- executive functions, and language.
Methods: 30 dyads, People with AD – caregivers, were evaluated. People with YOAD were assessed for: disease awareness, and depression. Caregivers were assessed for: depression, anxiety, coping, and burden. Additionally, caregivers provided information about mood, neuropsychiatric symptoms, dementia severity, and patients’ activities of daily living.
Results: Caregivers showed moderate level of burden 38.94 (SD = 14.74), low level of anxiety9.11 (SD = 9.8), moderate level of coping strategies 65.71 (SD = 11.7), and mild level of depressive symptoms 10.72 (SD = 8.8). People with AD had an average cognition score of 15.27, 50% had moderate dementia rating (CDR=2), mild depression index 12.35 (SD = 5.4), moderate index of neuropsychiatric symptoms 36.2 (SD = 23.3), and partially compromised disease awareness 9.06 (SD = 5.12). Coping strategy total score of caregivers was positively correlated with their cognition. Problem-focus is positively correlated with caregivers’ years of education, cognition and inversely correlated anxiety. The coping strategies were not correlated with the clinical variables of people with YOAD. Dysfunctional and emotional- focus did not have significant correlations with the clinical variables of people with YOAD or their caregivers.
Conclusions: Most caregivers, likely experiencing significant disruption in their personal lives, were similar-aged spouses to people with AD. Problem-focused coping strategies appear effective for caregivers, indicating that better cognitive health and higher education levels may enable them to use planning and active coping strategies to manage dysfunctional behaviors. Self-distraction was observed as a dysfunctional coping strategy, suggesting an association with anxiety and depression in caregivers, though our results do not confirm a causal relationship. Future studies with larger dyads samples should explore the relationship between coping strategies, clinical variables in patients with YOAD, and their caregivers, aiming to develop interventions to assist caregivers more effectively.
