**4.2 Descriptive results**

Alzheimer's patients were on average 75 years old, and about 60% were women; around 28% were in the very early stage of the disease, 28% were in the mild stage, 20% were in the moderate stage and, finally, about 24% were in the severe stage.

Informal caregivers were on average 60 years old, and the majority of them (about 67%) were women, 53.6% of carers live in the same home as the patient, 50.5% are spouses, ad more than 60% of carers reported suffering some health problem; and nearly 50% reported being professionally inactive, the remaining share of carers reported being absent from work for about 4 days a year to comply with the patient needs, and 70% of them report penalties in terms of salary and day off reduction and hour replacement from these work absences.

Lastly, it must be highlighted that 90% of the carers have no public financial support, and so all expenses are supported privately, by the patient, by the carer or by the family budget.
