Depression related factors of caregivers of Frail Elderly Persons

Abstract

This study aimed to develop guidelines for supporting main caregivers who care for de- pendent elderly using ambulatory rehabilitation facilities, and was designed to extract factors that af- fect depression. Forty-three dependent elderly and 43 main caregivers were enrolled.We examined depression, care burden feeling, sleeping hours, caregiving period, and age of the caregivers, as well as the ADL, level of care burden feeling, grade of care need, and age of the dependent elderly in or- der to determine the relationships with depression. Multiple regression analyses revealed that two items have an effect on depression: the age of the dependent elderly and the level of care burden feeling of caregivers. It was confirmed that depression of caregivers became higher as the age of the dependent elderly decreased and/or the level of care burden feeling of caregivers increased. The re- sults suggest that rehabilitation for function lost with age and support for caregivers with strong care burden feelings are important to reduce depression in main caregivers for dependent elderly.