The Impact of Dementia Severity on Caregiver Burden in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease

Caregiver burden is greater in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) than in Alzheimer disease (AD). However, little is known of the impact of the 3 main clinical variants of FTD— behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), semantic dementia (SemDem), and progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA)—or the role of disease severity in caregiver burden. The Zarit Burden Inventory was used to measure caregiver burden of bvFTD (n=17), SemDem (n=20), PNFA (n=20), and AD (n=19) patients. Symptom duration, caregiver age, and relationship type were matched across groups. Moreover, a number of caregiver (mood, social network) and patient variables (functional disability, behavioral changes, relationship with caregiver, and dementia stage) were addressed to investigate their impact on caregiver burden. Caregivers of bvFTD patients reported the highest burden, whereas SemDem and PNFA caregivers…

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