Cross-sectional survey of the replacement of the Japanese term for dementia: Did it reduce discomfort in family members?

Awareness, attitudes, and beliefs of dementia in Indonesia

INTRODUCTION

Tackling dementia stigma is a policy priority. In Indonesia, we have little insight into the general public's knowledge and attitudes about dementia.

METHODS

Cross-sectional study of 4430 Indonesian adults recruited from Jakarta and North Sumatra, Indonesia. Measures included dementia knowledge and attitudes.

RESULTS

A total of 86.3% (n = 3,803) of adults had not heard of the terms dementia or Alzheimer's disease, and commonly viewed dementia as a normal part of aging. Being older, incorrect knowledge about etiology, not having heard of the terms dementia and/or Alzheimer's disease, having less than primary education, and being from North Sumatra were associated with more negative attitudes (p-values < 0.05).

DISCUSSION

Misconceptions and lack of awareness about dementia are common in Indonesia. Attitudes tended not to be negative, but our research highlights factors associated with dementia attitudes. Future research should use this information to better tailor and target potential anti-stigma strategies.

Highlights

Most Indonesians had not heard of the terms dementia and/or Alzheimer's disease and thought it was caused by normal aging.The majority of participants held mixed or positive attitudes towards dementia.A series of demographic factors alongside poor awareness were associated with negative attitudes towards dementia.

Identifying Stigmatizing Language Used by Israelis and Germans With a Mild Neurocognitive Disorder, Their Relatives, and Caregivers of People With Alzheimer's Disease

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the study was to examine and compare the dementia-related discourse and language used by people with mild neurocognitive disorder (MND), their family members, and family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease in Israel and Germany.

DESIGN

This secondary qualitative analysis included focus groups and semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to reveal the main discourses and stigmatic language used regarding dementia and people with dementia.

SETTING

Israeli and German stakeholders.

PARTICIPANTS

Forty-four Israeli and 44 German participants: 28 people with MND, 20 family members of people with MND, and 40 family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease.

RESULTS

Two main discourses were identified: the tragedy and the biomedical discourse. The tragedy discourse included several subthemes: "Dementia as the worst-case scenario," "Nothing can be done about dementia," and "People with dementia are not human." The biomedical discourse stressed pathologic aspects of the condition. Similarities and differences were found between Israeli and German participants.

CONCLUSIONS

The study indicates that, despite culture and language differences, the use of stigmatic discourse and stigmatizing language is common among people with close exposure to dementia in Israel and Germany. Efforts should be increased to develop a person-centered and dementia-friendly language.

Cross-sectional survey of the replacement of the Japanese term for dementia: Did it reduce discomfort in family members?

OBJECTIVES

Decreasing discrimination and stigma of dementia is an international issue. In 2004, the Japanese government changed the previous Japanese stigmatic term of dementia ("Chiho") to the present one ("Ninchi-sho") a meaning near "neurocognitive disorder." This study aimed to examine cross-sectionally if the present term functioned well or not from the viewpoint of families of people with dementia (PWD), and to discover variables influencing their feelings of the term: the feelings about people surrounding PWD, and the family members' and PWD's attributes.

METHODS

Questions regarding the feelings about the present Japanese term and people surrounding PWD were asked to 155 family members accompanying PWD who visited three hospitals. For analyses, the degree of the discomfort about the present Japanese term was shown descriptively. The relationship of constructs of the feelings extracted by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the attributes was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

RESULTS

71.6% agreed that the present term discomforted them less than the previous one. Only 13.2% thought that the present term was discriminatory. However, about one third of the participants felt discomfort when they used even the present term. Using the constructs extracted by EFA, the analysis of SEM revealed that the negative feelings of the terminology were affected by hesitation to disclose to surrounding people that their family member had dementia, which the attributes of younger family members, wives, husbands, and siblings influenced. Moreover, because of disclosing the dementia, the feelings of support from people alleviated the feelings of hesitation, influenced by sex (female).

CONCLUSIONS

It was suggested that overall, the present term successfully reduced discomfort in families, compared with the result of the previous term surveyed by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. However, unignorable numbers of family members still feel stigma. New policies are necessary considering the influencing factors.