Support Via Technology: Living and Learning With Advancing Dementia-REVISED
Oregon Health and Science University
Summary
STELLA-R is a multicomponent, self-directed, online intervention designed to facilitate effective management of behavioral and psychological symptoms that are common in many types of dementia. The curriculum instructs care partners to use the ABC approach, a cognitive behavioral technique that teaches care partners to describe a Behavior, then consider the Activators and Consequences of a care recipient behavior. The goal of this intervention is to reduce care partner burden and decrease reactivity to upsetting behaviors.
Description
Providing care for a family member with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD, aka, "dementia") is both rewarding and risky. Care partners exposed to chronic stress, often over years, are susceptible to physical and psychological ailments. Dementia involves neurodegeneration and those affected typically depend on family members for support and physical care. The "care partners" for those with dementia often experience concerning psychological and physical outcomes due to the demands of caregiving. No matter what type of dementia, most care partners experience some burden. The burden…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * Adult caring for family member with ADRD * Age of 18 years or older * Speaks and understands English to be able to participate in intervention * Owns a telephone (smartphone, cell phone or landline) * Has email and mailing address to receive study materials and surveys * Provides informed consent to participate in the research * Lives in Oregon, Washington or Idaho * Identifies two or more behavioral symptoms that are distressing to them (care partner) Exclusion Criteria: * Vision problems severe enough to prevent participation * Unwilling or unable to adequately follo…
Interventions
- BehavioralSTELLA-R Curriculum
The STELLA-R curriculum is presented utilizing the ABC analytic approach to address care recipient's distressing behaviors. Using the scaffold of the ABC pyramid, they will receive video instructions on how to fully define the Behaviors they want to address by observing, describing, and writing about them. The care partners will learn to identify the Activators, the triggers for the behaviors. Next, care partners will learn to consider what happens after the behaviors, the Consequences. This is an 8-week self-directed, online weekly curriculum.
- BehavioralUnrestricted Access
Following the STELLA-R curriculum, care partners will receive 8 weeks of unrestricted access to all lessons and resources.
- BehavioralLimited Access
Experimental and Waitlist Control group will experience 8 consecutive weeks of limited access to the STELLA-R website and resources. Waitlist Control will experience this from Week 1 to Week 8 while the Experimental Group will reach this phase from Week 17 to Week 24.
Location
- Oregon Health & Science University, Layton Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Research CenterPortland, Oregon