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[P2–488]: THE HOUSTON ALLIANCE TO ADDRESS DEMENTIA ENACTS SYSTEMS CHANGES IN MOBILIZING DEMENTIA CARE: CASE STUDY OF THE HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL SYSTEM
Author(s) -
Agarwal Kathryn,
Kutac Julie,
Scott Katherine,
Williams Andrea'
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2017.06.1145
Subject(s) - dementia , general partnership , alliance , referral , community hospital , nursing , health care , medicine , service provider , community organization , service (business) , psychology , public relations , business , political science , disease , finance , pathology , marketing , law
Background:Seven out of ten persons with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are cared for by family members and friends, most of whom have not received any counseling, training or support to prepare them for the caregiving role. There is evidence that personalized interventions for dementia caregivers can lead to improve caregiver and patient outcomes. Methods: The Improving Caregiving for Dementia (I-CareD) project aims to provide caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s and other dementias education, training and support.We developed and launched an electronic content distribution system that allows caregivers to receive personalized information tailored to their learning styles and preferences. Caregiver resources in the form of text, audio/video, and web formats were loaded onto the Web-based Caregiver Resource Portal. Dementia care managers (nurse practitioners) were trained and demonstrated ability to create and deploy new resources, create custom emails for the users and view log of when caregivers log in to view content. Results:166 dementia caregivers received educationmaterials via the I-CareDWeb-basedCaregiverResource Portal fromOctober 01, 2016 to January 01, 2017. Of these 66 (40%) caregivers accessed the portal at least once during this period. We found that caregivers who lived with the person with dementia were more likely to access the caregiver resource portal compared to thosewho did not live with the care recipient [c(1)1⁄44.073, p1⁄4 .044]. Average mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score of care recipients of caregivers who did not access the resource portal (login1⁄40; n1⁄49) was 19.67 compared to 15.83 for care recipients of caregivers who did access the resource portal (login 1; n1⁄46) [t(13)1⁄41.134, p 1⁄4 .277]. Conclusions: A web-based content distribution system for dementia caregiver resources is more likely to be accessed by caregivers who live with the person with dementia. There is a trend towards increased likelihood of accessing electronic content by caregivers of persons with more advanced dementias. Future investigation will focus on the effects of this personalized electronic resource system on caregiver and care recipient outcomes.