Evaluating an Educational Intervention With Relatives of Persons in the Early Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The objective of this article was to describe the results of an educational intervention for family caregivers of persons in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. A total of 58 family caregivers participated in this intervention, which consisted of five weekly educational sessions about the disease and various aspects of caregiving. Measures of knowledge about Alzheimer's disease, reactions to patients'impairments, and levels of depression at pretest, posttest, and follow-up at 9 months posttest were analyzed. The results showed that modest benefits were derived by participants at the three points in time, with knowledge about the disease improving significantly, reactions to patients' impairments improving slightly, and level of depression increasing slightly. This preliminary study reveals that the educational intervention has merit for family caregivers coping with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, but new or different outcome measures could possibly better assess its impact.This study grew out of a concern that family members caring for relatives in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) have few educational and supportive services to address their needs at this particular stage of the disease. The Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago has evaluated an average of 350 persons with dementia annually for more than 10 years. At first, the majority of new patients evaluated in the clinic were in the middle and late 531

Knowledge of Alzheimer's Disease Among Family Caregivers

“…In two studies, knowledge did not seem to impact caregiver depression levels or health status [17,18]. Some studies have found no relationship between the level of knowledge and the level of caregiver burden [5,17]. However, Coen et al [15] found that the majority of their caregiver participants had an increased knowledge of dementia after the intervention.…”

“…In two studies, knowledge did not seem to impact caregiver depression levels or health status [17,18]. Some studies have found no relationship between the level of knowledge and the level of caregiver burden [5,17].…”

“…Location, ethnicity of caregivers, cultural factors, and economic factors all may help or hinder the services available [8]. Furthermore, it has been noted that there is a lack of interventions pertaining to the early stages of the disease when the information and knowledge may be most beneficial to the caregivers [17].…”

“…Along with services that provide general information about the disease, there are specific interventions available for increasing knowledge about communication between the family caregiver and care recipient [13,18] and for negotiating challenging behaviors [15,23]. For many participants, both formal and informal caregivers, participating in various interventions was helpful and useful to their situations [17,[22][23][24]. It has been suggested that including both members of the caregiving dyad in the intervention may be the most beneficial way of delivering education and promoting positive results for both the caregiver and care recipient [22].…”

“…Increased knowledge is considered to be beneficial to most caregivers [15][16][17]. A family caregiver's sense of competency increases if the caregiver has a high level of efficiency and knowledge of communication skills with people that have dementia [18].…”