Impact of Psycho-Behavioral Intervention for Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American Caregivers of Alzheimer's Disease Patients: Highlights from REACH II

Most people who have Alzheimer's Disease or a related memory problem are cared for by family members. Caregiving has a significant impact on the caregiver's health and well being. Therefore, it is important to identify strategies to alleviate caregiver distress.

Findings from the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver's Health (REACH II) program, a large multi-site trial, demonstrated that a multi-component psychosocial intervention was effective in reducing the risk for adverse outcomes among informal caregivers of persons with dementia. This presentation extends these findings and examines how responses to the intervention were moderated by caregiver characteristics such as age and ethnicity. The sample included in the analysis was drawn from five sites and included 211 Black/AA, and 212 Hispanic American caregiver/patient dyads who were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition following a baseline assessment. We used stepwise hierarchical regression to examine change (at six months) in caregiver outcomes. The results indicated that : 1) Hispanics and Black/AA who received the intervention reported less burden and fewer patient problem behaviors 2) Hispanics reported more diligence in self-care and Black/AA reported more social support ; 3) Caregiver's Age moderated the effect of treatment on Caregiver Burden for both groups such that the decrease in burden was observed for caregivers who were older; and 3) Years of caregiving and CG/CR relationship, moderated the effect of treatment for Black/AA for CR problem behaviors; such that the treatment was more beneficial for spousal caregivers who had less years of caregiving experience.