Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Dementia: Diagnostic Differences and Associations with Caregiver Mental Health

Abstract

Close relational partners play a critical role in shaping each other’s emotions during social interactions, a process known as interpersonal emotion regulation. We examined how different forms of dementia (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease [AD], behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia [bvFTD], primary progressive aphasia [PPA]) affect interpersonal emotion regulation. We assessed how caregivers perceived their partners’ prosocial regulatory efforts and tracked real-time changes in caregivers’ affect during a dyadic interaction. We also investigated how these processes relate to caregivers’ mental health. Informal caregivers (N = 62) reported on their own mental health symptoms (depression, anxiety) and how their care recipients, who had different forms of dementia, use prosocial interpersonal emotion regulation (i.e., efforts to make their partner feel better). Dyads then engaged in a 10-minute unrehearsed discussion about a conflict in their relationship. Following this, caregivers viewed a video recording of the interaction and used a rating dial to provide continuous ratings of their own affective valence (negative-neutral-positive) during the conversation. Results revealed that among care recipients with AD, PPA, and bvFTD, those with bvFTD showed the lowest use of prosocial interpersonal emotion regulation, and their caregivers experienced the greatest increases in negative affect during the interaction. Across diagnoses, greater increases in caregiver negativity during the interaction were associated with greater caregiver depression (but not anxiety). These findings provide new information about interpersonal emotion regulation in dementia and highlight how the emotional changes that occur during dyadic interactions are tied to caregiver depressive symptoms.