The purpose of the work is to assess the state of the mental sphere of relatives, who cared for patients with dementia, to determine the need to develop a goal-oriented system of therapy and rehabilitation measures for this contingent.

In compliance with the requirements of biomedical ethics, we examined 153 relatives (children) who lived together and/or cared for patients with dementia. A comprehensive examination included clinical-psychopathological and psychometric studies. M. Hamilton’s HDRS and HARS depression and anxiety scales and the L. Derogatis SCL-90-R psychopathological symptomatology scale were used

The mental health status of relatives considering care needs with dementia varied, including normal mental health status (16.9 %), mental maladjustment (54.9 %), and clinically defined adjustment disorder F43.2 (28.1 %).

In general, relatives of persons with dementia have special changes in the affective sphere. The variability of these changes is closely related to the presence of factors that affect the state of health and maladjustment. In relatives without signs of mental disorders and factors that affect health, indicators of severity of depression and anxiety are within the normal range, although they approach indicators of mild expressiveness of depressive and anxiety disorders. On the other hand, relatives who have been found to have factors affecting health have signs of depressive and anxiety disorders, mostly of a subclinical and mild level. Relatives with adjustment disorders have moderate depressive and anxiety disorders, and in 15—20 % of cases, severe symptoms

Analysis of the expressiveness of psychopathological symptoms in relatives of patients with dementia, indicators of their most pronounced manifestations of depression (in persons with signs of impaired adaptation — high level, in persons without symptoms of impaired adaptation and with existing signs of factors that affect the state of health — moderate level), anxiety (moderate level, in persons with signs of impaired adaptation — on the border of increased level), interpersonal sensitivity (moderate level), obsessive-compulsive disorders (in persons without signs of adaptation — low level, in persons with signs of factors affecting state of health and with signs of impaired adaptation — moderate level), phobic anxiety (in persons without signs of impaired adaptation and in persons with signs of factors affecting the state of health — low level, in persons with signs of impaired adaptation — moderate level), somatization (low level in all groups, closer to a moderate level in individuals with signs of impaired adaptation), low levels of hostility, and the absence of paranoid symptoms and psychoticism.

The specified regularities must be followed when planning treatment and rehabilitation measures for relatives with dementia only.