A recent University of Alabama study has shown that race and relationship can help experts decide what intervention strategies to use when helping caregivers of family members with Alzheimer’s disease.
UA was one of six intervention sites in the U.S. selected for REACH, a six year study by the National Institutes of Health to develop and test new ways for caregivers to manage the stress and burden of helping their loved ones.
UA’s study, headed by Dr. Louis Burgio, professor of social work and psychology and director of UA’s Applied Gerontology Program, found significant differences in the preferences of African-American and Caucasian caregivers, and between men and women, in relation to the type of assistance they prefer.
Burgio used two intervention conditions — a hands-on skill-training model and a minimal support condition. “With this study we couldn’t have the traditional control group where nothing is done because these caregivers are really in distress. We wanted to give them something worthwhile, so we did sort of a mild intervention so a comparison could be drawn.”
The minimal support group received therapeutic information through mailings of information and periodic phone calls. In contrast, the skills training group had a formal workshop, in-home skills training and problem solving, and routine follow-up visits.
While both groups showed significantly lowered levels of stress and burden, Burgio said the study did show that racial/ethnic groups responded differently to the interventions.
“Whites/Caucasians responded best to the minimal support condition, while African-Americans responded best to the in-home skills training condition,” Burgio said.
He said the relationship of the caregivers also mattered. “We found that husbands responded best to minimal support while the wives responded best to skills training,” he said.
“What REACH is telling us is that we can help these people, but we have to go beyond that. Now that we know what works, we need to go in and modify it based on personal characteristics. We have to tailor the interventions to the individual caregivers.”
Burgio and others across the nation will further explore the issues when REACH II, expected to be funded this fall, begins. It will again be a multi-site clinical trial, except all six sites will be studying the same intervention — in-home skills training.