AAIC 2022 Abstracts Dementia Care and Psychosocial factors

Background: Family caregivers of persons with dementia (PWD) suffer from stress and negative health outcomes related to round-the-clock caregiving responsibilities. Often caregivers lack awareness of community resources. Community HealthWorkers (CHW) have proven effective in educating families and can implement interventions that aim to reduce the impact of stress on their health. To alleviate caregiver burden among dementia family caregivers, this study has CHWs' visit family caregivers' homes offering education, stress reduction, and compassionate support/listening. Methods: Participants were recruited from Southern California via non-profit organizations, senior centers, and adult day services. Participantswere randomly assigned to CHWhome-visit intervention group (IG) or control group (CG) with resource information only. The intervention includes stress reduction techniques of mindful breathing and compassionate support/listening, (2) education on dementia caregiving skills to handle difficult behaviors of PWD, and (3) resource information. The 3-month intervention is given by bilingualCHWs who speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, orKorean. A linear mixed model was used to compare differences from baseline to 3-month on each outcome (caregiver burden, PWD behaviors - memory, distress, disruption) between IG and CG. Exit interviews were conducted for IG participants. Results: 26 family caregivers participated in the study (12Korean, 9Vietnamese, 3 Hispanic, 2 Caucasian); 14 spouses (54%), 12 off-spring (46%); 18 females (69%), age from 34 to 89 (mean= 66.8 sd= 12.6). IGParticipants showed a significant decrease in caregiving burden compared to CG (coefficient = -7.68, p =.0041). PWD behaviors were significantly decreased from baseline to 3 months but no difference by group. However, there was a trend for improvement of PWD's memory problems in the IG compared to the CG (coefficient = -2.43, p =.056). Language specific exit interviews showed that educational materials were valuable and communication skills training was helpful as wasCHWhome visits. Most participants reported the benefit ofmindful breathing and practiced it when overwhelmed or having sleep problems. The overall satisfaction of the intervention was high (mean = 4.4 of 5). Recruitment is on-going but challenging during the pandemic. Conclusion: Preliminary results showed the CHW led home-visit intervention helped improve burden and PWD memory problems and was acceptable by the family caregivers ofPWD.

Automated summary

The CHW led home-visit intervention showed promising results in improving caregiver burden and behavior problems of persons with dementia (PWD). Participants reported high satisfaction with the intervention.