Abstract

RIBOT REYES, Victoria de la Caridad; LEYVA VILLAFANA, Yanisleydis; MONCADA MENENDEZ, Carlos  and  ALFONSO SANCHEZ, Rosa. Quality of life and dementia. AMC [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.1, pp.77-86. ISSN 1025-0255.

Background: the promotion of well-being and the maintenance of a good quality of life are essential in chronic diseases that tend to dependence like dementia. Objective: to present the fundamental criteria about the quality of life in people with dementia. Methods: a bibliographic review was made in Infomed, specifically in SciELO and PUBMED data bases with the descriptors quality of life and dementia. Twenty-nine references were used to make the review. Development: the term quality of life, its origins and definitions, as well as the introduction of this term associated to health as a concept, were reviewed. The controversy around the quality of life of people with dementia in different stages and the main instruments to measure it, were analyzed. Conclusions: there are significant challenges in the study of quality of life in dementia, in both theoretical and methodological fields. There are many instruments specifically created for the study of quality of life in these patients, although most of them do not have a common theoretical model. Continuing improving the specific measures of quality of life for dementia with the objective of creating a valid instrument for all the stages of the disease, based on an only conceptual framework of quality of life, is the challenge.

Keywords : QUALITY OF LIFE/PSYCHOLOGY; DEMENTIA; ALZHEIMER DISEASE; LONGEVITY; REVIEW LITERATURE AS TOPIC.

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