ABSTRACT

Treatment outcomes of geriatric patients would depend on forming as well as maintaining the relationships with therapists, caregivers, and family members. Empathy of the patients have a critical impact on quality of the relationships. Empathy deficits in neurodegenerative dementias, such as frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, aggravate the burden of the therapists and caregivers. This brief paper reviewed current findings regarding methods of measuring empathy, pathological and/or aging impact on empathy, and its neural mechanisms. It was especially suggested that informant-rated empathy measurement should be considered rather than self-rated one when evaluating empathy changes in dementia patients. It was also discussed that research on pathological aging of empathy would be helpful in treating and/or coping with dementia patients because most of them were associated with the empathy deficits.