Background
Among the community dwelling elders 65 and older 15% of men and 11% of women are living with moderate to severe memory impairment and the percent affected increases with age. In addition, community dwelling elders report numerous chronic medical conditions that cause pain, such as diabetes and arthritis. According to experts in the field, recognizing, assessing and treating pain in the elderly, particularly those with dementia, requires one to take into account a number of critical factors. While interventions such as Kovach’s Serial Trial Intervention have been introduced into the long term care setting what is not evident in the literature is an intervention appropriate for the community setting.
Purpose
This project is an expansion of a currently funded study evaluating the feasibility and efficacy of the Caregiver Self-Management of Unmet Needs (C-SUM). The intervention is intended to teach family caregivers to self-manage the needs of their family members living with dementia to prevent unmet needs. By making the caregiver the primary assessor, makes this a more realistic model for more widespread use in the community setting.
Goals
- Test the feasibility of the C-SUM with ten caregiver/care recipient dyads as determined by successful completion of all aspects of the intervention.
- Test the use and usefulness of the components of the C-SUM for design refinement.
- Evaluate recruitment and retention for future sample size determinations.
- Evaluate the family caregivers’ perception of the use and usefulness the C-SUM for design refinement.
Timeline
June 1, 2008 – December 31, 2009
Progress to Date
- Institutional Review Board approval of the project
- Hiring of study staff, including receipt of an Undergraduate Research Fellows Award from the Office of Undergraduate Research.
- Subject recruitment and data collection begun
- Seven out of ten caregiver dyads recruited
Funding Source
Center for Urban Population Health’s Center Scientist Development Program through the Wisconsin Partnership FundInvestigators and Staff
University Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing
Sarah W. Morgan, Ph.D., R.N., Assistant Professor
Linda Bub, Advanced Practice Nurse
Bao Xiog, Undergraduate Research Fellow
