[Informal care for dementia according to type of service]. / Informelle Pflege bei Demenz nach Leistungsarten.

BACKGROUND: Dementia is a major challenge for society and its impact will grow in the future. Informal care is an essential part of dementia care. Previous studies considered informal care as a whole and not by its components. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the degree of association between specific informal care services and dementia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This analysis is based on data from the seventh wave of the AgeCoDe/AgeQualiDe study. Dementia was diagnosed based on the DSM-IV criteria. Severity of dementia was assessed and categorized by means of the Clinical Dementia Rating and eight individual informal care services were considered. Logistic regression models were used to assess associations. RESULTS: Of the 864 participants 18% suffered from dementia (very mild: 4%; mild: 6%; moderate: 5%; severe: 3%). All informal care services were significantly associated with dementia, with an emphasis on "supervision", "regulation of financial matters" and "assistance in the intake of medication". Considering different degrees of dementia severity, similar results arose from the analyses. All three aforementioned services showed a pronounced association with all degrees of dementia severity, except for supervision and very mild dementia. CONCLUSION: The provision of all types of informal care services is associated with dementia. The association is pronounced for services that can be more easily integrated into the daily routines of the informal caregiver. Policy makers who plan to integrate informal care into the general care arrangements for dementia should consider this.

[Reliability of morbidity data reported by GPs. Results of a longitudinal study in primary care]. / Reliabilität ärztlicher Morbiditätsangaben zu chronischen Krankheiten. Ergebnisse einer Längsschnittstudie im hausärztlichen Bereich.

BACKGROUND: Data on prevalence of chronic diseases are important for planning health care services. Such prevalence data are mostly based on patient self-reports, claims data, or other research data-with limited validity and reliability partially due to their cross-sectional character. Currently, only claims data of statutory health insurance offer longitudinal information. In Germany, these data show a loss of diagnoses of chronic health conditions over time. This study investigated whether there is a similar tendency of loss in the documentation of chronic diseases in data specifically collected for a longitudinal cohort study by general practitioners. In addition, the explanatory power of patient or GP characteristics regarding these losses is investigated. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 3,327 patients aged 75 years and older were recruited for the German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe). For 1,765 patients, GP diagnoses of four chronic conditions at three time points were available for a total period of 4.5 years. In order to explain the loss of chronic diagnoses, a multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression was performed. RESULTS: Over the course of 4.5 years, 18.6% of the diagnoses of diabetes mellitus, 34.5% of the diagnoses of coronary heart disease, and 44.9% of the diagnoses of stroke disappeared in the GP documentation for the longitudinal study. The diagnosis of coronary heart disease was less often lost in men than in women. The risk of losing the diagnosis of diabetes was higher in patients who were well known by the GP for a long time. An essential part of the variance of the losses can be explained by practice (owner) effects. CONCLUSION: Data on morbidity collected in epidemiological studies and reported by physicians should always be checked for validity and reliability. Appropriate options (e.g., an investigator collecting the data directly in the field or the comparison of the data with health insurance companies' claims data) are presented and discussed.

Does Visual Impairment Affect Social Ties in Late Life? Findings of a Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study in Germany.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate how visual impairment affects social ties in late life longitudinally. DESIGN: Population-based prospective cohort study. SETTING: Individuals in old age were recruited via general practitioners' offices (at six study centers) in Germany. They were interviewed every 18 months. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals aged 75 years and above at baseline. Follow-up wave 2 (36 months after baseline, n=2,443) and wave 4 (72 months after baseline, n=1,618) were used for the analyses presented here. MEASUREMENTS: Social ties were assessed using the 14-item form of the questionnaire for social support (F-SozU K-14). Visual impairment was self-rated on a three level Likert scale (no impairment, mild visual impairment, or severe/profound visual impairment). RESULTS: Adjusting for sociodemographic factors, hearing impairment and comorbidity, fixed effects regressions revealed that the onset of mild visual impairment decreased the social support score, in particular the emotional support score. Additionally, the onset of mild hearing impairment decreased the social support score in men. Moreover, increasing age decreased the social support score in the total sample and in both sexes. Loss of spouse and increasing comorbidity did not affect the social support score. CONCLUSION: Our results highlight the importance of visual impairment for social ties in late life. Consequently, appropriate strategies in order to delay visual impairment might help to maintain social ties in old age.