The overall goal of this project is to enhance the detection, assessment and family care of Alzheimer's disease in the rural counties of West Virginia through a state-wide educational program.
The specific aims i nclude: 1) to provide training in assessing the cognitive status of elderly clients and the adequacy of their family caregiving arrangements by health care professionals in 28 W.V. counties; 2) to provide training for clinical preceptors (medicine, nursing and social work) at eight rural health network sites; 3) to implement a training dissemination methodology which addresses problems raised in the current grant funded project; 4) to compare the education outcomes from the two projects; 5) to evaluate the patient care outcomes from the training of the local health care professionals; 6) to facilitate networking within counties between health care professionals involved with Alzheimer's disease care; and 7) to facilitate networking state-wide between health care professionals involved with Alzheimer's disease care. The methodology includes: 1) training of staff development personnel from home health, mental health, senior service, and adult protective service agencies; 2) training county professionals in 28 counties at 14 local workshops using the staff development trainees as trainers; 3) train clinical preceptors (medicine, nursing, social work) at eight Rural Health Initiative Networks sites; 3) evaluate educational outcomes at all training sites; 4) evaluate patient care outcomes from the training of local health care professionals; 6) create and disseminate 28 county resource directories for older adults; 7) create and disseminate a state- wide data base of services for older adults with dementing illnesses.
| Rankin, E D; Haut, M W; Keefover, R W et al. (1994) The establishment of clinical cutoffs in measuring caregiver burden in dementia. Gerontologist 34:828-32 |
