Dependence in Aged Adults Suffering from Alzheimer Disease at Tepic Civil Hospital, Nayarit, México

Abstract

Introduction: The world has undergone a process of change that involves multiple transitions, such as demographic and epidemiological. In Mexico, the prevalence of dementia diseases such as Alzheimer's has an increasing trend, hence it is necessary to study and to analyze its impact on the population.

Objective: To determine the degree of dependence in aged adults with Alzheimer's disease in a second-level hospital in Nayarit, Mexico.

Methods: This is a descriptive study with cross-sectional and quantitative approach. The Barthel index was applied to assess the basic activities of daily living to 29 main caregivers of the patients registered in the hospital database. The variables chosen were sex, age, municipality and degree of dependency. Data analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS version 20 program.

Results: The mean age was 79 years; 62.1% were women and 37.9% men; the municipality with the highest number of patients was Tepic (44.8%). Regarding the degree of dependence, independence was the most frequent (27.6%), followed by total dependence (24.1%). Correlation between deaths and degree of dependence was evidenced with a level of significance below 0.000 (α error).

Conclusions. In Nayarit there is dependence in aged adults suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Primary caregivers receive little or no training in caring for these patients. The underdiagnoses of this disease in some way favors dependence, since the family is not guided or the basic therapeutic measures are not given to support the patient, this in turn is of special interest because there is close correlation between deaths and dependency.