Background: The caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) play a key role in their management. Half of them are spouses. This involvement may alter their own health, leading to exhaustion and depression. Since 2010, general practitioners (GPs) have been invited in France to offer an annual specific medical support to spouse caregivers. The aims of this study were to understand their experience of this situation by spouse caregivers, and how the spouse caregiver perceives the role of the GP in this context.
Methods: A qualitative approach was conducted using semi-structured interviews of 14 spouse caregivers recruited from adult day care in Angers, France.
Results: The analysis of interviews showed that AD was an existential crisis for the dyad AD patient/spouse caregiver. The emotional connection and the sense of commitment strongly involved the spouse caregivers into cares for the loved ones. Even if the frequency of medical consultations remained unchanged, caregivers were more prone to delay non-urgent cares for themselves. Moreover their intention to handle things on their own and the interaction with health professionals of the care recipients interfered with the involvement of the caregivers' GPs.
Conclusions: Caregivers' adaptation to their spouses' AD resulted in both negative and positive behaviors. Instead of a mandatory annual consultation focused on caregivers' health, the improvement of communication between all support services, including caregivers' GPs, may help to enhance the medical support of spouse caregivers of AD patients.
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