Past is prologue: how to advance caregiver interventions

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Research on caregiving interventions has increased substantially in recent years. Although many promising approaches have been tested, results are often modest. The goal of this paper is to identify conceptual and methodological issues that could lead to better treatment outcome.

Method: A critical review of the literature on interventions for caregivers of persons with dementia.

Results: A fundamental issue in caregiver interventions is what are appropriate goals for treatment and what outcome measures should be used to address those goals. There also needs to be more testing of the mechanisms by which treatment leads to improvement. Intervention studies should also more regularly examine fidelity of treatment implementation.

Conclusion: Recommendations are made for improving the design of future trials through better attention to the heterogeneity of the caregiving population, improved conceptualization of goals and the use of innovative designs that accommodate differences in caregivers’ needs and resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiving
• dementia
• methodology

Acknowledgments

I thank Steffany Fredman and Lauren Bangerter for their critical reading of drafts of this manuscript and their insightful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

National Institutes of Health [R01 AG031758].