By Zosia Bielski, Globe and Mail
People who care for spouses with dementia are, on average, six times more likely to develop the condition than those who don't have an affected partner, say the researchers of a new study that tracked more than 1,000 married couples over 12 years.
Male caregivers are particularly vulnerable, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Their risk of a man getting the cognitive disorder - characterized by symptoms such as memory and language loss, as well as mood swings - if his wife has it is 12-fold, compared with 3.7 fold for women.
The risk may be caused by the stress of caregiving and observing "the deterioration of their life partner," write the researchers from Johns Hopkins, Utah State University and Duke University.
