141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Educating caregivers to help improve sleep in patients with dementia - learning from seniors to improve program design, intervention and evaluation


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Nicole Cook, PhD, MPA, Master of Public Health Program, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Sweta Tewary, PhD, MSW, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Linda Maurice, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Ft.Lauderdale, FL
Raymond Ownby, MD, PhD, MBA, Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Susan McCurry, PhD, Psychosocial and Community Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Introduction: Sleep problems among persons with dementia (PWD), including unsupervised wandering and pacing, can be dangerous for PWD and stressful for caregivers. We modified a research-based intervention “Nighttime Insomnia Treatment and Education for Alzheimer's Disease (NITE-AD)” to educate caregivers in adult day centers about non-pharmacologic interventions that might improve sleep in PWDs. The program will be conducted with caregivers of PWD in a 5-week, group delivery format. To validate the appropriateness of our program materials, recruitment strategies, and curriculum, we organized two feedback sessions comprised of older adults from Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI), located within the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Nova Southeastern University.

Methods: Older adults were recruited from the LLI to attend one of the two feedback sessions, each 1½ hours long. Sessions were oral group discussion, facilitated by the Sleep Educator. Notes were taken by two project team members and summarized for review by the project team. Attendees were given a $20 gift card to a local supermarket for their participation.

Results: Twenty-four participants attended one of the two feedback sessions. Participant feedback, which will be presented in greater detail, included numerous programmatic recommendations including recruitment flyer wording, inclusion and exclusion criteria refinement and program script edits.

Conclusion: Engaging feedback from older adults on the modified NITE-AD program resulted in significant changes to anticipated program delivery. We anticipate that having engaged the targeted community in program design, implementation, and evaluation materials will produce a more appropriate program for community stakeholders.

Learning Areas:

Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning

Learning Objectives:
Assess the potential for a community-based, group, non-pharmacological intervention to educate caregivers to help improve sleep in patients with dementia. Identify opportunities for community-based participation in designing and evaluating community-based interventions for caregivers of persons with Alzheimers.

Keyword(s): Dementia, Community Participation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dr. Cook is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at Nova Southeastern University. She has served as the lead on numerous community-based projects in health promotion, disease management, health disparities in primary care, and health information technology, where she developed tools, survey instruments and methodologies, created data collection systems, delivered health interventions, conducted qualitative and quantitative analysis in order to support process improvement, quality assurance and outcome evaluation in public health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5000.0: Special Topics in Aging and Long-Term Care