[Alzheimer's disease influence on the perception of quality of life from the elderly people]

Abstract

This study aims to compare the general perception and each dimension of the quality of life (QoL) of an elderly group with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) (n = 53) to those of a similar group regarding the socio-demographic variables (n = 53). The QoL measures were obtained through an Assessment Scale of the Quality of life in Alzheimer's Disease, and the data were typed into a database in the program Statistical Program for Social Sciences for the execution of the statistical analysis (descriptive, Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney and Chi-Square). Results showed that all dimensions of QoL measured by the instrument were statistically inferior in the group of elderly with AD. Regarding the total scores of QoL, the mean was 40.18 points for elderly without AD and 29.32 for elderly with AD, t(104) = 9.449, p < 0.001. These results indicate that older people with AD present inferior levels of QoL, which suggests that AD has a negative influence in their perception of quality of life.