Caring for a person with dementia is a highly stressful activity and is associated with negative physical and mental health consequences, including increased risk of depression and worse reported health-related quality of life. Many psychosocial interventions for dementia caregivers have been developed and shown to be efficacious for reducing burden and depression, but few have been translated for community use, mainly due to poor accessibility. The goal of this development project (NIH stage IA & IB) is to create a mobile health (mHealth) application (App) for distressed family caregivers that combines the strengths of evidence-based telephone- delivered caregiver and mind-body interventions. The project has two aims.
In Aim 1, the caregiver research team will collaborate with computer engineers to translate the interventions into a mHealth App and conduct month-long open trial (beta testing) with 10 dementia caregivers. We will carry out qualitative interviews with participants regarding technical and content aspects of the App that will inform intervention modifications.
In Aim 2, we will complete a 3-month feasibility clinical trial, in which 40 dementia caregivers will be randomized to a treatment condition that will receive computer tablets containing the newly developed App or a control group that receives dementia caregiver-related internet links. Outcome measures include caregiver depression, burden, reactions to behavior problems, desire to institutionalize, and healthcare resource utilization. The primary goal of the study is to address feasibility and accessibility of the intervention and control condition as well as collect data on recruitment and retention, adherence, and satisfaction. At the completion of this project, we will have developed a tailored, multicomponent, mHealth App to address caregiver burden, depression, and healthcare utilization in a full-scale efficacy trial.
There are effective strategies to help distressed family caregivers of persons with dementia, but many caregivers cannot access these programs. This project will establish the feasibility of incorporating elements of evidence-based interventions into a mobile health App designed to reduce the negative consequences of family caregiving of persons with dementia. Long-term goals of this project are to test this App in a larger study and move it toward community implementation.
