Caregiver burden characterization in patients with Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia.

Objective: To characterize the differences of caregiver burden in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) in order to improve the care counselling and management plan.

Methods: We included 506 patients consecutively attending the Alzheimer's Evaluation Unit of a Geriatric Unit, evaluated with Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and Neuropsychiatric Inventory. To all caregivers were administered the Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI), a 24-item multidimensional questionnaire in which 5 subscales explore 5 dimensions of caregiver burden: (1) CBI-Objective; (2) CBI-Developmental; (3) CBI-Physical; (4) CBI-Social; and (5) CBI-Emotional.