Support for Alzheimer’s Disease CaregiversDr. Joe Gaugler, Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and Center on Aging at The University of Minnesota (Off Site), is conducting a study to determine how effective individually tailored, comprehensive counseling and support is for adult children who care for parents with Alzheimer’s disease or similar disorders. He will also be working with a study counselor at the University of Minnesota who will provide the counseling and support for this study. Adult children of parents with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or a similar memory disorder are eligible to participate. Parents must also live at home alone, with adult children, or with other relatives in the community. Although all family members will be invited to take part in individual/family counseling sessions, only adult children who are most responsible for the care and well-being of the parent will participate in the periodic, in-depth interviews. Participants will be randomized (i.e., like the flip of a coin) into a usual care control that will receive information and a counseling condition that will receive the following services: 1) 6 individual and family counseling sessions with a trained counselor to determine the individual needs of each caregiving family and devise individually-tailored treatment plans to assist those families during the first four months; 2) support group attendance, either at a group administered by the study counselor or one selected by the caregiver; and 3) ad hoc counseling, where the caregiving can contact the counselor at any time to discuss crises or other issues. Regardless of experimental group, Dr. Gaugler will administer in-depth interviews every 4 months during the 1st year of study participation and every 6 months thereafter to provide a wealth of data on caregiving background, the functional, behavioral, and cognitive status of the parent, service utilization, and caregiver’s psychological and emotional status. Participation in the study is anticipated to last from 1 to 3¾ years, depending on when caregivers decide to participate and are recruited during the course of the project. Contact Dr. Joe Gaugler with any questions, concerns, and or interest in participating.
Updated 07/13/2007 |
