ABSTRACT
Families continue to provide the bulk of chronic care over the course of Alzheimer’s disease. Family care is preferred, based in strong family values that cross cultural/ethnic lines, intimate, individualized, dignified, but unrelenting. The primary care clinician is usually the first and only professional families turn to for help with decision making. As such, the primary care professional can have the greatest influence on critical family care decisions. The impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the patient and family is a dynamic process that changes over time but invariably creates a permanent imbalance in the normal give-and-take of family relationships. Families, and more often patients, report difficulty in getting primary care physicians to take seriously memory or cognitive complaints. The primary care approach to a presenting problem of cognitive decline can set a positive tone for effective long-term care. A continuing source of primary care is often the critical variable in timing and dosing of information to enhance compliance.
