The moderating effect of religiosity on caregiving burden and depressive symptoms in caregivers of patients with dementia.

OBJECTIVES: This study explored whether religiosity/spirituality has a protective role against negative caregiving outcomes, in a large multicenter nationwide sample of caregivers of patients with dementia in South Korea. Additionally, this study was the first to examine whether religiosity/spirituality could affect caregiving outcomes according to the various religious affiliations of caregivers. METHODS: The study was conducted on a sample of 476 caregivers of patients with dementia participated in the Clinical Research Center for Dementia of South Korea (CREDOS). We examined the moderating effect of each of the three dimensions of religiosity/spirituality (organizational religious activity, ORA; non-organizational religious activity, NORA; intrinsic religiosity, IR) on the relationship between activities of daily living (ADL) of patients with dementia and caregiving burden and depressive symptoms of caregivers, using a series of hierarchical regression analyses. In addition, these analyses were conducted according to the religious affiliations of the caregivers. RESULTS: ORA, NORA, and IR of religiosity/spirituality alleviated the effect of ADL of patients on caregiving burden. ORA and IR moderated the relationship between ADL of patients and depressive symptoms of caregivers. These moderating effects of religiosity on caregiving outcomes were different according to various religious groups. CONCLUSION: We have identified religiosity/spirituality as a protective factor for caregivers of patients with dementia. The sub-dimensions of religiosity as moderators were different by religious affiliations of caregivers. Further studies are needed to investigate the specific religiosity-related factors which could positively impact the mental health of the caregivers of patients with dementia by religions.

A serial study of regional cerebral blood flow deficits in patients with left anterior thalamic infarction: anatomical and neuropsychological correlates.

Thalamic damage is associated with a variety of neuropsychological dysfunctions, as well as strategic infarct dementia. However, only a limited number of reports in the medical literature have discussed the correlation between the clinical findings and the specific functional changes observed on images. We investigated the neuropsychological correlation of the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) deficits in four patients with left anterior thalamic infarction within two days after their stroke. All of the patients showed anterograde amnesia on the verbal memory test. Some dysexecutive features were present such as decreased word fluency and an impaired performance on the Stroop test. A decreased rCBF was observed in the left supramarginal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, the middle and inferior frontal gyri, and the medial dorsal and anterior nuclei of the left thalamus. The changes of rCBF may have been due to remote suppression by the interruption of the thalamo-cortical circuit that connects the anterior thalamic nucleus and various cortical areas. These initial findings remained unchanged even on the follow-up studies.