Compassion in dementia caregiving: Psychometric properties of the Caregiving Compassion Scale in Spanish caregivers.

Compassion has been suggested as a relevant variable for understanding dementia caregivers' psychological distress. The objectives were to analyse the psychometric properties of the Caregiving Compassion Scale (CCS) and to explore the association between caregivers' compassion and their emotional health. Two hundred and thirty-six dementia caregivers were evaluated for compassion, depressive symptoms, guilt, ambivalence, care-recipient's functional and cognitive status, frequency of behavioural problems and desire to institutionalise the care-recipient.

Caring for Relatives with Dementia in Times of COVID-19: Impact on Caregivers and Care-recipients.

Objectives: To analyze caregivers' perceived impact of the pandemic in their mental health and the well-being of the care-recipients.

Methods: Caregivers (N = 88) were asked if they had COVID-19 and about their perceptions of change of care-recipients' health conditions as well as whether their own mental health, conflicts with care-recipients and other relatives, thoughts of giving up caregiving, and feelings of coping well with the situation.

Results: A large percentage of caregivers perceived a worsening of care-recipients' symptoms and of their own negative emotions, an increase in the number of conflicts and thoughts of needing to give up caregiving.

Depression in Alzheimer's Disease: A Delphi Consensus on Etiology, Risk Factors, and Clinical Management.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia are among the most common causes of disability in the elderly. Dementia is often accompanied by depression, but specific diagnostic criteria and treatment approaches are still lacking. This study aimed to gather expert opinions on dementia and depressed patient management to reduce heterogeneity in everyday practice.

Focus on Depression in Parkinson's Disease: A Delphi Consensus of Experts in Psychiatry, Neurology, and Geriatrics.

Major and minor forms of depression are significant contributors to Parkinson's disease morbidity and caregiver burden, affecting up to 50% of these patients. Nonetheless, symptoms of depression are still underrecognized and undertreated in this context due to scarcity of evidence and, consequently, consistent clinical guideline recommendations. Here, we carried out a prospective, multicentre, 2-round modified Delphi survey with 49 questions about the aetiopathological mechanisms of depression in Parkinson's disease (10), clinical features and connections with motor and nonmotor symptoms (10), diagnostic criteria (5), and therapeutic options (24).

Refining memory assessment of elderly people with cognitive impairment: Insights from the short-term memory binding test.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects temporary memory for bound features more remarkably than for individual features. Such selective impairments manifest from presymptomatic through dementia stages via titration procedures. A recent study suggested that without titration and with high memory load the binding selectivity may disappear in people at risk of AD such as those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

Social robots in advanced dementia.

Aims: Pilot studies applying a humanoid robot (NAO), a pet robot (PARO) and a real animal (DOG) in therapy sessions of patients with dementia in a nursing home and a day care center.

Methods: In the nursing home, patients were assigned by living units, based on dementia severity, to one of the three parallel therapeutic arms to compare: CONTROL, PARO and NAO (Phase 1) and CONTROL, PARO, and DOG (Phase 2). In the day care center, all patients received therapy with NAO (Phase 1) and PARO (Phase 2).

A novel rating scale for the measurement of apathy in institutionalized persons with dementia: the APADEM-NH.

Objective: Apathy is one of the most frequent symptoms of dementia, still needing better measurement methods. The objective of this study was to validate a new scale for apathy in institutionalized persons with dementia (APADEM-NH).

Methods: The scale includes 26 items distributed in three dimensions: Deficit of Thinking and Self-Generated behaviors (DT): 13 items, Emotional Blunting (EB): 7 items, and Cognitive Inertia (CI): 6 items.

[Effectiveness of the Mini-Mental State for detection of cognitive impairment in primary care].

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy (DA) of the Mini-Mental State (MMS) for the detection of cognitive impairment (CI) in Primary Care (PC) and to determine the best conditions of use for that purpose.

Design: Pooled analysis of two prospective, double blind, studies on the evaluation of diagnostic tools with complete verification that were conducted in Madrid and Granada (Spain).

Setting: The MMS was administered in PC and the final cognitive diagnosis (gold standard) was made in Specialized Care.