An Innovative Psychosocial Intervention for Adult-Child Caregivers of Parents With Alzheimer's Disease

February 28, 2008 updated by: The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation
The goal of this project is to test an intervention designed to reduce the incidence and magnitude of the negative effects, specifically stress, anxiety, and depression, frequently experienced by adult children who are caregivers of a parent with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Study Overview

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Caring for an elderly parent is a growing societal problem, and many studies have shown that caring for a person with dementia can have a negative impact on a caregiver's psychological and physical health, social life and career, and relationship with the patient. Stress and coping models proposed in the AD caregiving literature, and general stress and coping theories suggest that by improving caregivers' ability to cope and master the caregiving situation, it is possible to avoid or ameliorate the negative emotional consequences of caregiving.

Building upon the results of a pilot study, this study will formally test the efficacy of a psychosocial intervention, based on a concept of caregiving that builds on the interests, activities, and responsibilities of both the caregiver and patient in creating a care strategy. The intervention is designed to reduce the negative effects frequently experienced by adult children who care for a parent in the middle stage of Alzheimer's disease. Caregivers will learn to engage with their parents in activities that are within the patients' remaining functional and cognitive abilities. Caregivers will also be encouraged to teach activities to other family members and paid caregivers. The study will also evaluate a lower level of intervention, based on written materials.

It is expected that by increasing knowledge about AD and providing what may be a new conceptual approach to relating to a parent at this point in the disease process, 1) caregivers and patients may experience a higher level of satisfaction and gratification from their interactions, 2) caregivers will gain a sense of control and mastery over a difficult situation and thus feel more capable of coping and 3) the patient may maintain a higher level of functioning.

A randomized treatment/control design will be used, and adult-child caregivers who participate will be assigned to one of the two levels of intervention, each designed to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. The benefits of each intervention will be evaluated by looking at the change in scores on widely used measures of the anticipated outcomes among caregivers in each group, and their relative benefits will be tested by comparing scores of the caregivers in the two groups at two follow-up points, six and nine months after baseline.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

100

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10016
        • Recruiting
        • Aging and Dementia Research Center, Silberstein Institute, NYU School of Medicine
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

21 years to 90 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Men or women between the ages of 21 and 90
  • Adult-child caring for at least one parent who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and is in the moderate stage
  • Person with Alzheimer's disease must be living at home or in a congregate residential setting that is like a home
  • Caregiver must be willing to complete intake and follow-up questionnaires
  • Caregiver must be willing to attend 2 workshops and 1 individual counseling session

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Severe psychological or physical illness
  • Unwillingness to participate in all aspects of the study

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: 2
Experimental: 1
multi-component psychosocial intervention
Behavioral: Information, counseling and support
individual-family consultation, support group, and ad hoc consultation

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Changes in measures of depression, stress, and anxiety
Time Frame: six and nine months from baseline
six and nine months from baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Mary S. Mittelman, DrPH, NYU School of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2003

Primary Completion (Anticipated)

April 1, 2008

Study Completion (Anticipated)

April 1, 2008

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 7, 2006

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 7, 2006

First Posted (Estimate)

December 8, 2006

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 3, 2008

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 28, 2008

Last Verified

February 1, 2008

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IA0097
  • Project #195

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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