The recent literature on informal carers of dementia patients is reviewed.
Families bear the major responsibility for such care.
Also influential are the carer's gender, coping style, social network, and the carer's level of intimacy with the elder. The interpretation of actual morbidity is complicated by methodologic problems. However, carers appear to suffer from at least moderate levels of psychological symptomatology. Carers tend to judge their own health to be poorer than that of controls. Some studies have also found aspects of caregiving to be associated with elder abuse, but this is controversial.