Perceptions du proche aidant et du professionnel de la santé quant au statut fonctionnel des personnes atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer ou d’autres troubles neurocognitifs : un examen de la portée
The role of the caregiver is essential in supporting the autonomy of those with Alzheimer's disease (or another neurocognitive disorder). However, although the caregiver's perception of the functional status of the person to whom he or she provides support has already been studied, no literature review that has addressed the correspondence between a professional assessment and the perception of functional status by caregivers. The objective of this study is therefore to compare the caregiver's perception and evaluation of the healthcare professional regarding the functional status of seniors with Alzheimer's disease (or other neurocognitive disorders). To do so, a scope review was conducted. Sixteen articles meeting the inclusion criteria were included in the study. All studies were non-experimental (cross-sectional, longitudinal, cohort with control group, cohort, qualitative and mixed), and represented heterogeneous samples with respect to the cognitive dimension of the subjects. The majority of studies (n=10) had more female than male participants. The age of seniors with a neurocognitive disorder ranged from 62.4 (±6.8) y.o. to 82.73 (±6.4) y.o., and that of caregivers ranged from 48.2 (±15.2) y.o. to 79.6 (±8.5) y.o. Spouses of people with Alzheimer's disease or a neurocognitive disorder were the primary caregivers among family caregivers, followed by children. Assessment settings varied from home, clinical settings or research center laboratories. The results of 75 % of the studies show that the assessments made by professionals gave results that diverge from the perception of caregivers. In 31 % of the studies, there was a tendency for caregivers to underestimate abilities compared to professionals, while in 25 % of the studies, there was a tendency for caregivers to overestimate abilities. Finally, in 19 % of the studies, the nature of the discrepancies (underestimation or overestimation) was not specified Results on the nature of the relationship between the person with a neurocognitive disorder and his/her caregiver suggest that spouses tend to overestimate the functional abilities of people with mild neurocognitive disorders, while relatives in other types of relationships (child, friend) generally show a tendency to underestimate them. Moreover, differences between caregivers and professionals are more likely to be related to activities related to instrumental activities of daily living. Additional studies with caregivers will have to be conducted in parallel with standardized assessments by healthcare professionals in order to collect more data to better understand which activities of functional status are perceived in a divergent way.
Perception Neurocognitive disorder Activities of daily living Caregiver