Anticipatory dementia and well-being Lynne Gershenson Hodgson, PhD

Abstract

This exploratory study examines the relationship between well-being and anticipatory dementia—the fear that normal, age-associated memory change is the harbinger of dementia. The sample is comprised of4O to 60-year-old men and women, 25 of whom are the adult children of a living parent with Alzheimer's disease, and 25 who are a matched group with no family history of dementia. A composite measure of anticipatory dementia was created for this study. It combines scores from measures of concern about developing Alzheimer's disease and subjective assessment of memory functioning. Four measures of well-being were used—depression, psychiatric symptomatology, life satisfaction, and subjective health status. The results show significant bivariate relationships between anticipatory dementia and well-being. Differential associations exist depending on group membership by sample group and sex.