This news article is a description of UC Berkeley research into the “high stakes of caregiver stress.”
According to researchers, “[patients] with dementia may actually die sooner if their family caregivers are mentally stressed. … [Compared] to patients who were cared for by relatives in fairly good mental health, patients tended by family members in poor mental health died, on average, about 14 months sooner.”
“While the study does not provide definitive causal or directional evidence for the earlier death of patients whose caregivers are in poor mental health, ‘it highlights the mutual influence both parties’ mental and physical states have on one another, and the extraordinarily high stakes that are involved,'” the lead researcher said.
“The study notes that poor mental health in caregivers can affect patients’ lives in a variety of ways. It can reduce the quality of patient care by raising the risk of neglect or abuse, weaken the patients’ immune systems by compromising social bonds between the caregiver and patient, or transmit negative emotions directly to patients through a phenomenon known as emotion contagion, in which one person in a relationship absorbs the emotional responses of the other.”
Mental health issues include depression, anxiety, social isolation and frustration.
The full article can be found here:
news.berkeley.edu/2017/06/26/caregiver-mentalstress/
Mind & Body, Research, Science & Environment
Dementia patients may die sooner if family caregivers are mentally stressed
By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations
Berkeley News
June 26, 2017
Robin