Anxiety, Compassion, Stress
Conditions
Keywords
caregivers, anxiety, depression, yoga, meditation, stress
Brief summary
This study evaluates the effects of the practice of yoga in combination with compassion meditation on the quality of life, attention, vitality and self-compassion of family caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease.
Detailed description
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disorder that involves the loss of reasoning, memory, language and the ability to live independently. Thus, patients who suffer from this disease often require care from another person and must adapt to ensure their health, functional capacity and safety. Caregivers have a poor quality of life due to the physical and psychological burden of caregiving. Such physical, psychological, social and financial burden can increase the risk of death. Within this scenario, techniques such as yoga and meditation have emerged as low-cost interventions that offer little or no risk to the practitioners. Yoga seeks to develop health and attention through physical postures, breathing exercises and formal meditative practices.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALyoga and compassion meditation program
25 min of physical exercise, holding each pose (stretching exercise) for an average of 1 min and 30 s; 25 min of breathing exercises and 25 min of meditation.
Sponsors
Federal University of São Paulo
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* be a family caregiver of Alzheimer disease patient * age over 18 years * completed at least the primary education level * at least at the phase of stress resistance according to Lipp's Inventory of Stress Symptoms for adults
Exclusion criteria
* patient with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) * alcohol use (more than 5 drinks per week) or use of drugs-of-abuse; * suffer from Cushing's syndrome * under treatment with topical, nasal or any form of steroids within the last 30 days * practice yoga, meditation or similar techniques
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| change in cortisol | baseline, 8 weeks | Saliva samples were collected for analysis of cortisol |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| change in depression | baseline, 8 weeks | Beck Depression Inventory |
| change in anxiety | baseline, 8 weeks | Beck Anxiety Inventory |
| change in quality of life | baseline, 8 weeks | WHOQOL-bref (World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire with 26 questions) |
| change in stress | baseline, 8 weeks | Lipp Stress Inventory |
| change in attention | baseline, 8 weeks | Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale |
| change in self-compassion | baseline, 8 weeks | Self-Compassion Scale |
| change in vitality | baseline, 8 weeks | Subjective Vitality Scales |
Outcome results
None listed