Measurement and the interpretation of burden in the Alzheimer's disease experience.

Three components of the Alzheimer's disease care equation are considered : impairment, felt burden, and the institutionalization decision. Measurement and the results of existing studies are compared with field data on the descriptive organization of the caregiving experience. It is suggested that measurement is an inappropriate language for depicting the experience, empirically distorting what is otherwise a practical process of definition and interpretive transformation, shaped in, and constrained by, caregivers' continuing attention to the meaning of their burden.