The Savvy Caregiver Program: Developing and Testing a Transportable Dementia Family Caregiver Training Program

Abstract

Results suggest that it is feasible to translate a research-based caregiver intervention into a packaged program that can be adopted in other settings without the direct involvement of the program initiators.

Effectiveness of Supporting Informal Caregivers of People with Dementia: A Systematic Review of Randomized and Non-Randomized Controlled Trials

“…The Savvy Caregiver program, that implemented an intervention containing educational and skills training components to support caregivers, concluded that interventions caregivers had better mastery and distress scores compared to those who did not receive the intervention [83].…”

Knowledge of Alzheimer's Disease Among Family Caregivers

“…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].…”

“…For programs and interventions to be successful, they have to be specific to the families' needs and must be translatable to other locations [14,20,24]. Interventions can take place over the telephone or the internet, which is helpful to those in rural communities, those who do not have transportation, and those who do not have care available for the care recipient [9,21].…”

Undergraduate caregivers for individuals with chronic conditions: Stressors and needs

“…In other caregiver populations, such as dementia caregivers, programs consisting of modules on problem-solving, communication, psychoeducation about caregiver burden, stress management, and disease specific education about symptom management have demonstrated short and long-term efficacy in reducing caregiver stress, depression, and improving caregiver quality of life [41,42]. In order to address the emotional support needs of student caregivers, like those in this study, college counseling centers could provide similar interventions either in person, via telephone, or create videos and online modules those student caregivers could complete at home to improve access to these resources.…”