Alzheimer Caregiving Problems According to ADLs: Evidence from Facebook Support Groups.

Background and study goal: Social media are a societal phenomenon today, including the oldest generation, yet they are seldom used in current health research to identify the needs of persons with Alzheimer's disease (PADs) and their carers. There is an even bigger research gap in the analysis of caregivers' communication in online support groups and its classification according to activities of daily living (ADLs). For this, the goal of this study is to identify real-life practices of informal caregivers who care for PADs based on the analysis of their communication in Facebook groups. Methods: A sample of 1603 contributions was obtained from support groups by keyword search, manual coding, and verification; thus, the contributions in the sample are relevant for the individual basic ADLs of PADs. Next, five main conversation topics were identified for each ADL. This was done using the topic extractor based on simple parallel threaded implementation of LDA with a sparse sampling scheme and data structure. Results: The qualitative dimension of research identified discussion topics as well as specific caregiver behavior patterns for each ADL. The quantitative dimension determining the level of engagement of group members in individual ADLs was also measured. The highest engagement was found in activities of feeding and drinking, followed by bathing. In contrast, the activities of dressing, continence, and toileting attract the lowest interest. Moreover, the causal links between the topics discussed within the areas of ADLs were identified. Conclusions: The acquired knowledge can help further research focus on the most problematic areas relevant for people with AD in order to increase their quality of life and at the same time reduce the caregiver burden. The study expands the information of the demands posed by the individual caregiver activities, specifically in the context of activity-based costing or time-based activity costing.

Activities of Daily Living and Associated Costs in the Most Widespread Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Systematic Review.

Nowadays, the population is rapidly ageing because of increasing life expectancy and decreasing birth rates. Thus, the purpose of this systematic review is to prepare a comprehensive overview which identifies the activities of daily living (ADLs) that are gradually reduced among patients with dementia, as well as explore the therapies applied in relation to dementia and how they effectively improve the quality of life (QoL) of patients and caregivers. Furthermore, we aim to summarise the ADL activities influenced by therapies and examine the treatment costs and care for patients so that recommendations for research and development (R&D) can be made to improve both the QoL of people with dementia and cost-saving measures. The research focuses on four selected neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer, Parkinson, vascular dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Therefore, the peer-reviewed English written articles from 2014 to 2019 were searched between September 1 and December 13, 2019. Twenty-seven papers were included in the analysis. The results show that essential assistance occurs in connection with activities: eating, drinking, dressing, bathing, personal hygiene, use of the toilet, and transport. By contrast, shopping or cleaning is not addressed as much. A lower ability to take care of oneself is connected with poor patient health and higher social care costs because the patient requires care from external sources, such as home aid or nurse visits. The challenge that remains is to shift new knowledge from scientific disciplines and connect it with the needs of patients to remove legitimate barriers and increase the acceptance of new solutions by popularisation. Additionally, regarding the burden on caregivers, it would be appropriate to promote this area of education and employment so that family members can use formal caregivers, ensuring them free time and much-needed rest.