P2: Analysis of resilience levels in caregivers of patients with young and late onset Alzheimer’s disease

Introduction: Resilience is a dynamic process involving the interaction between risk and protective factors that act to modify the effects of adverse life events. Understanding the resilience of caregivers of patients with AD and its predictors is essential for the development of intervention strategies aimed at solutions that can contribute to the improvement of their emotional disorders, such as anxiety, stress, anddepression. Methods: 93 dyads of patients diagnosed with AD, where 60 (64.5%) dyads had Late-onset AD (LOAD) and 33 (35.5%) dyads had Young-onset AD (YOAD). Patients were assessed for: quality of life (QoL), disease awareness, and depression. Caregivers were assessed for: resilience, depression, anxiety, burden, and QoL. Additionally, caregivers provided information about mood, neuropsychiatric symptoms, dementia severity, and patients’ activities of daily living. Results: Caregivers showed moderate levels of resilience, with an average score of 140 (SD = 13.20), moderate level of burden 28.94 (SD = 14.74), low level of anxiety 7.56 (SD = 7.44), and low level of depressive symptoms 8.17 (SD = 6.34). Patients had an average cognition score of 18.81, 63.4% had mild dementia, low depression index .2 (SD = 5.78), low index of neuropsychiatric symptoms 16.11 (SD = 14.47), and partially compromised disease awareness 9.06 (SD = 5.12). Conclusions: No relationship was found between caregivers’ resilience and patients’ clinical condition, indicating that resilience seems to be associated with caregivers’ individual characteristics. Interventions such as psychoeducational groups, behavioral or religious counseling, may stimulate or develop resilience characteristics in caregivers who exhibit avoidance or denial behaviors regarding the patient’s diagnosis.