People with young-onset dementia and their families experience distinctive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions

Evidence is emerging to describe the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions for older people with dementia, who are at high risk of contracting the virus (Hariyanto et al., 2021) and experience rapid worsening of behavioral and psychological symptoms (Cagnin et al., 2020). People with dementia report reduced psychological wellbeing and increased anxiety associated with COVID-related social service closures (Giebel et al., 2021). Family members of people with dementia have reported increased levels of stress and caregiving load during lockdown measures (Cohen et al., 2020), especially where they reported anxiety about the virus itself (Savla et al., 2020) and where they withdrew from support services for the safety of the person with dementia (Giebel et al., 2020)...