Care Dependency, Frailty, and Caregiver Burden Among Older Adults with Dementia
Keywords:
activities of daily living, caregivers, dementia, frail elderlyAbstract
Background: Dementia imposes growing functional, physical, and caregiving demands in later life. Understanding how care dependency and frailty relate to caregiver burden is important in tertiary-care settings, where families frequently remain central to day-to-day support and care coordination
Aim: To examine care dependency, frailty, and caregiver burden among older adults with dementia and their family caregivers.
Approach: This cross-sectional study included 83 older adults with physician-diagnosed dementia and their family caregivers at Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. Consecutive sampling was used. Care dependency, frailty, and caregiver burden were assessed using standardized instruments. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, bivariable tests, and multivariable linear regression in IBM SPSS Statistics version 21
Results: The mean (SD) age of older adults was 78.6 (7.4) years, and 49 participants (59.0%) were women. The mean (SD) caregiver burden score was 21.7 (8.9). In adjusted analyses, greater frailty (β, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.41 to 1.47; P = .001), lower Care Dependency Scale scores indicating higher dependency (β, −0.28; 95% CI, −0.41 to −0.15; P < .001), and longer daily caregiving time (β, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.18 to 1.08; P = .007) were associated with higher caregiver burden. Dementia severity, caregiver relationship, and comorbidity count were not independently associated
Conclusions: Greater care dependency, higher frailty, and longer daily caregiving time were associated with higher caregiver burden among dementia care dyads in this tertiary-hospital sample
Implication for Nursing Practice: Routine nursing assessment may benefit from integrating caregiver burden screening with functional dependency and frailty evaluation to identify high-risk dyads early and support more tailored dementia care planning
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