The subjective feeling of caregivers’ burden in Parkison’s Disease (PD). Research Overview

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Who: Paulina Golińska
Where: International Sopot Youth Conference 2017

Abstract: The aim of the speech is to present an overview on foreign literature and the presentation of own research concerning the feeling of caregivers’ burden in PD. Due to unique symptoms of disease and its characteristics, researches on the subjective feeling of burden could be differentiated. The major difficulty in researches on PD is a heterogenic picture of the disease (due to multitude and diversity of symptoms). Executive function disorders are the most common problem in cognitive functioning.
The research was performed to prove the influence of a type and intensification of cognitive disorders on the functioning patients and their caregivers in the family system, and to show that some psychological resources of caregivers may have an influence on the feeling of caregivers’ burden.
The research consisted of two parts. There were 40 people examined, 20 pairs – a caregiver with a diseased person. Every person with PD was subjected to a standard neuropsychological assessment. The caregiver was asked to fill in the questionnaire and solve a few psychometric tests.
Most patients have disorders of executive functions and the cognitive impairment has the essential influence on the feeling of caregivers’ burden.