[Quality of life and dementia]

Abstract

Dementia and Alzheimer disease (AD) are an important public health problem with devastating consequences for the patient and they impose a great burden on the families. However, the concept and emphasis on quality of life (QoL) in dementia and AD has appeared in the last decade. Given that there is not treatment for the disease, the main objective is to preserve the patients' quality of life. QoL is an outcome measure in the assessment of different treatments and health and social interventions. The measurement of QoL allows patients and caregivers to express the impact produced by the treatment and the interventions; also, the measurement of QoL offers to professionals the opportunity to incorporate the value systems of patients and their caregivers in their assessments. The existing specific QoL scales for dementia have been developed mainly in the US and UK. There is a lack of these scales in our culture.